Libertarian Band has launched a new section called “Question to Bitarch,” where the channel host answers on behalf of Bitarch. Naturally, all answers concern only the topic of fighting violence, which is being actively developed by Bitarch, and this is a respectable level of determination.
For my part, I should note that I am not particularly fond of Lorenz’s concept of aggression, which treats it as a kind of tension that accumulates and eventually bursts. I still prefer the version that aggression is one of the types of reaction to a stimulus (the desire to destroy the source of irritation), along with flight (the desire to avoid the stimulus) and patience (the desire to adapt to the stimulus while minimizing costs). If we proceed from the version of aggression as tension, then widespread armament can only contain this tension for a short time until it accumulates and breaks out in a bloodbath, so it is somewhat strange to me that Bitarch adopts this idea so uncritically.
As for the ways to eradicate violence, I am closer to the approach of Alexander Elesev from the Dobroum channel, who argues that there will be far fewer prerequisites for violence if people do not have experience with violence in the family. Not that everything works so straightforwardly, but it would be an important component of success. And the second component of success in eliminating systematic violence is the cultivation of intolerance toward it. Someone who steps in to break up a fight is always a good person, regardless of whether they might get hit by both sides; they are within their rights. If you want to fight, surround this ritual with rules, conduct it in the presence of witnesses, determine the criteria for victory, accept defeat if the rules require it, and fulfill the conditions you committed to in case of defeat. If you are not ready for such complexities, do not pick a fight.
I understand that these theses seem very raw, but this is not my field of expertise. I am glad that Bitarch continues to systematize his ideas while receiving feedback from readers. Perhaps I will receive some response from him regarding the considerations outlined above.
In the modern world, surveillance using various digital means, especially surveillance cameras, is actively practiced. Most major cities in developed countries are already covered by them from top to bottom. This is promoted to the public as a method of fighting crime, including violent crime. If there are cameras everywhere, few people will dare to steal property or attack others due to the inevitability of punishment. But it is not that simple. Surveillance cameras do help in preventing non-violent crimes. But in the case of violence, they are useless.
An analysis of 41 studies on this topic shows that everything depends on the type of crime. Cameras are best at preventing car thefts and property theft. Accordingly, the greatest effectiveness of cameras is achieved specifically in parking lots (a 51% reduction in crime), while in city centers, the impact of cameras proved to be insignificant. But most importantly, no evidence was found that cameras have any influence whatsoever on the number of violent crimes.
This fact only confirms that violence is not a rational and conscious act; the tendency to commit violent acts depends on the “nature” of the specific person. One cannot stop violence, which is irrational in its essence, by resorting to rational stimuli and deterrence mechanisms. Neither surveillance nor the punishment following a violent crime can reduce the level of violence.
The tendency to commit acts of violence, or more precisely, the inability of a specific person to restrain their aggressiveness, can generally be explained by a weak version of the Lorenz mechanism that inhibits intraspecific violence. Given that it is observed in a wide range of very diverse species, its presence in humans would be unsurprising. The only difference is that there was no evolutionary pressure on humans to develop a strong version of it, so some people possess precisely the weak version.
Understanding the irrational nature of violence, the fight against it must be based exclusively on an understanding of human biology and psychology. An obvious alternative to surveillance cameras is universal armament (a uniform balance of violence potential). Almost every aggressor has a self-preservation instinct, so knowing that a potential victim is highly likely to have a weapon, they will not attack. And if someone attacks anyway, the victim’s armament will not only allow them to deal with the violence specifically at the moment it is committed but will also exert that very evolutionary pressure to strengthen the innate inhibitor of violence, as in the case of some species that are heavily armed by nature and possess a strong version of it. Post-factum punishments, again, do not work. This includes even the adoption of the elimination of violent offenders after the fact, as this also requires people capable of violence outside the framework of self-defense (that is, initiating violence on their own part), which means this will not help reduce aggressiveness.
A more humane and effective option would be the development of gene therapy for violence, which would activate and strengthen that very Lorenz mechanism. In this case, pressure could be applied to violent offenders to stimulate them to take the corresponding drug. Alternatively, a dart could be fired at them during a direct attack, using this alongside non-lethal means of self-defense.
Sometimes it seems that there are many people prone to violence all around us. Almost every day in the news, you can see how someone beat, maimed, or even killed someone else. Perhaps you often encounter various kinds of hooligans and “gopniks” on the streets. Therefore, it is difficult to even imagine how to fight violence if so many people commit it. However, this is a quite deceptive perception that does not correspond to reality. In fact, there are very, very few people prone to violence, and therefore, by applying certain strategies, the problem of violence is entirely solvable. Now we will perform a detailed calculation of the actual number of violent offenders to ensure that there really are not that many of them in society.
The peculiarity of acts of violence is that, in their visibility, they far outpace all other events. Millions of different events happen every day, but it is exactly a few cases of violence that end up on the front pages of news resources and on television broadcasts. Hundreds of thousands of people live beside you, leading their ordinary lives, and you don’t even notice them. On the other hand, you will easily notice a dozen hooligans whose behavior will naturally stand out strongly among everyone else. You see them; you don’t see the other people. That is the whole point. In reality, violent offenders and the acts of violence they commit are very, very few on the scale of society as a whole; it is simply that acts of violence are among the most noticeable deeds.
How does this assertion relate to real data? Let’s look at the statistics of violent crimes in Russia. Non-violent crimes do not interest us, as they are not related to the infliction of direct physical harm to a person or forced coercion. Material damage can be fully compensated, including obtaining compensation from the perpetrator himself by applying various reputational and financial sanctions, and moral harm can be avoided by not maintaining relationships with people who might inflict it (of course, there are situations where a person is forced to interact with someone against their will, but here everything again boils down to forced coercion itself). Only the infliction of physical harm and forced coercion are real problems. Furthermore, our topic is the determination of the number of violent offenders specifically, and not just dishonest and unscrupulous people.
In 2020, 2,044,221 crimes were registered in Russia. Of all crimes, 1.53% are murders (7,695), intentional infliction of severe physical harm (20,019), kidnapping (411), and rapes (3,535). Another 0.26% of crimes are robberies (5,280). Let’s also add 2.7% threats of murder or infliction of severe physical harm (55,223). Of course, this is not the infliction of physical harm itself, but we will consider these acts as failed attempts to commit violence by people prone to it. And finally, 1.66% of crimes consist of intentional infliction of moderate health damage (28,185) and battery (5,716). In total, about 6.1% of crimes are violent in nature [1].
We find that on average, 1,393 crimes were registered per 100 thousand people. Of these, 85 crimes are violent. Of course, far from all acts of violence are registered. This may include domestic violence, small fights, and many other cases. It would be quite reasonable to multiply this number by 4. I made this choice based on the results of a study by the Institute for Law Enforcement Problems at the European University, which discusses how many people actually report to law enforcement agencies and for how many reports a case is initiated. Unfortunately, the study does not have such a clear division of crimes by category as in the case of official crime statistics, so I will assume that about 25% of violent crimes fall into these statistics, based on the percentage of initiated cases for assault (55% of assault victims report to the authorities, and cases are initiated for 44% of reports) [2].
This gives us 340 acts of violence per year per 100 thousand people. The number may seem too small because some violent offenders commit violence frequently and regularly (for example, a bad parent may beat their child, or a bad husband may beat his wife every day). Therefore, for 1 act of violence, we will take all violent actions of one specific person toward another specific person, especially since the repeated commission of similar acts of violence by one person against another in official judicial proceedings will most likely be registered as one crime, and therefore will enter the statistics as only one crime. Out of 852,506 identified criminals, 492,107 (57.7%) had previously committed crimes. The statistics do not specify the number of previously committed crimes; most likely, in reality, 1 violent offender commits more than 2.36 acts of violence on average, but due to the lack of data, we will accept exactly 57.7% of acts of violence as those that do not increase the total number of violent offenders, but only indicate which of them committed violence again. Additionally, it is worth noting again that the vast majority of crimes you notice are non-violent in nature (most often they relate to the economic sphere), whereas we are considering exclusively the commission of acts of violence.
As a result, we find that 144 violent offenders are discovered per year per 100 thousand people, which is 0.144% of the total population, or 1 person out of 695. A very insignificant number, right? Some might say that in their place of residence there are clearly more violent offenders, however, the statistics we are considering concern all of Russia at once, where crime is distributed very unevenly. For example, if we consider severe violent crimes (including robbery), which make up 1.79% of all registered crimes in the general statistics, in Moscow they account for only 1.13% [3]. The total number of crimes registered in Moscow is 146,559, which is 7.2% of all crimes, which is also a more positive result than for Russia as a whole, since Moscow accounts for about 8.6% of the population.
From these calculations, of course, it is impossible to draw exact conclusions about how many violent offenders we have in society at a specific moment, i.e., at what level their number remains. However, as we have seen, the growth of violent offenders is minuscule, and it should be noted that there is also a decrease in violent offenders; they are no more invulnerable or long-lived than other people. Quite the opposite—violent offenders live less on average, as they more often expose themselves to risk due to active participation in violent clashes, whereas other people will not initiate them and will try to avoid them. The absolute number of violent offenders will, of course, grow with population growth, but their percentage ratio to the total population, all other things being equal, will not change.
Note that this result, revealing one violent criminal per 695 people per year, is the worst possible scenario, since we made a series of assumptions in the worst direction: all threats of murder and infliction of severe physical harm were taken as unsuccessful attempts to commit violence; the number of registered violent crimes was multiplied by 4 because many people do not report to law enforcement agencies or they do not initiate a case upon report; we assumed that 1 violent offender commits 2.36 acts of violence on average, but this would be true only for a single recidivism (whereas many violent offenders have multiple). There are all grounds to assume that the real number of violent offenders is many times smaller. However, it is not possible for us to find it, so we calculated the worst possible value, below which it certainly cannot be.
Another important point to mention is that we considered only cases of inflicting fairly serious physical harm. The least brutal of violent crimes that can be found in official statistics is battery. Of course, there are many more people capable of violence that is very weak compared to battery, for example, hitting someone with a fist once or intentionally pushing. This is the kind of violence you notice most often, which is why it may seem to you, again, that there are many violent people. Of course, this violence is also a problem, but far from such a large one, considering the following factors:
1) such violence is not enough to maintain a violent hierarchy of dominance in society (one form of which in human society is the state), nor can it seriously threaten people in general;
2) it is very easy to control through upbringing, condemnation, as well as the threat of ostracism and other reputational methods;
3) it is easy to defend against using simple means of self-defense, such as pepper sprays;
4) its danger is not that great, so there is no need for a priority struggle against it; it is sufficient only to concentrate efforts on fighting violence exhibited by a small percentage of brutal violent offenders, and weak violence can be dealt with later.
From everything we have now considered, a simple conclusion can be drawn—real violent offenders are not that many; they make up a very tiny percentage of the population. This means that the deterrence, and in perspective the complete eradication of violence, is a completely achievable goal, which clearly does not face the problem that there are too many violent offenders and therefore we cannot deal with all of them.
One of the primary methods of fighting violence can be described as achieving a balance of violence potential—that is, the general armament of the population, where every person is able to quickly and effectively eliminate a violent offender during a direct attack. However, some people may doubt the possibility of implementing such a scenario due to economic inequality in society or the simple unwillingness of some people to own weapons. But there is one interesting method through which the number of violent offenders in society can be significantly reduced, even with the help of a small group of armed activists. It will create the exact same natural selection pressure to strengthen the violence-inhibiting Lorenz mechanism in the population as in the case of general armament, but will require far fewer resources to implement.
Of course, I am not proposing preemptive violence, because for its implementation, our activists themselves would have to be violent offenders capable of initiating violence against other people. To rely on a group of armed violent offenders for one’s own security, even if they currently claim to be on your side, would be great foolishness. Activists must be people capable only of self-defense. Furthermore, it should be understood that we cannot know for certain whether a specific person is prone to violence until they find themselves in circumstances that provoke its initiation. Only if they were unable to restrain themselves and exhibited violence can it be said that they are prone to it. In this regard, preemptive violence would ultimately lead to casualties among ordinary and peaceful people, which we absolutely cannot allow.
What I am proposing is specifically a method of “provoking” violent offenders to reveal their violent nature. To make it clear what I am talking about, I will refer to one example of the practical implementation of this strategy. We are talking about the eradication of banditry in post-war Odessa, or the so-called “Masquerade” operation, organized by Marshal Zhukov himself. Of course, this operation was carried out by government decree, but in this case, that is not so important, since it still consists of using only self-defense, and therefore can be adopted by those fighting against aggressive violence. When well-dressed men, sometimes accompanied by equally fashionable ladies, began to appear on the streets of Odessa under the cover of night and in dark alleys, bandits simply could not restrain themselves from attacking. However, the victims of the attacks were actually disguised and armed officers of the Soviet militia, and upon being attacked, they shot to kill.
I think you already understand the essence of this strategy. Armed activists simply need to provoke people prone to violence into attacking. And I am not even talking about some kind of intrusive provocations (although a normal person would not respond to those with violence either); provocations on the level of the aforementioned walks through dark alleys are sufficient, and many, many variations of these can be devised. For example, walking through a predominantly conservative neighborhood in LGBT attire. When some bandit or violent offender decides to carry out an attack, all that needs to be done is to defend oneself using weapons—an absolutely normal action in the case of any violent attack.
Some may dislike such an approach for its cruelty, but it is unlikely that anything can be found in it that would make it not worth applying. It does not propose the initiation of aggressive violence, only self-defense against violent attacks, which is an absolutely normal and justified action. It cannot lead to casualties among ordinary and peaceful people, because such people simply will not attack the activists under cover; this will be done exclusively by bandits and violent offenders. And there is nothing wrong with provocations of this kind. In the scenario we have already examined, we would not justify the violent offender and blame the victim of the attack if the event took place not in broad daylight in a crowded place, but somewhere at night in a dark alley, would we? Every person has the right to walk where they want and in whatever they want; the problem lies exclusively with the violent offender who is unable to follow the simple rule “one can offend, but one cannot be offended”! If someone is unable to restrain their violence and attacks people, then they fully deserve a response in the form of armed self-defense.
The idea of leveling the balance of violence potential (BVP) so that every person could deter and repel attacks from various types of violent offenders and maniacs, as well as to ensure the impossibility of recreating a violent hierarchy of dominance in the form of a state imposing its monopoly on violence, is often criticized by pointing to the example of the USA as a society with universal armament. Since there is a state in the USA and acts of violence are very frequent there, it is argued that this demonstrates the failure of this idea. But is there actually a uniform BVP in the USA?
Of course not. A Pew Research Center survey shows that only 30% of Americans own a weapon, and another 11% live with someone who does. Among gun owners, 72% possess handheld firearms, such as a pistol. Of these, 11% carry a weapon constantly, 26% from time to time, and 57% only rarely. Summarizing these statistics, we find that among all Americans, only 2.4% of people carry a weapon constantly, another 5.4% from time to time, and 12.3% rarely.
It should be added that the distribution of armament in the USA is very uneven. First, different states and counties have different gun laws. While in Maine and Louisiana you can acquire a weapon with ease, in New York, California, or Massachusetts, you would have to struggle significantly to do so. Second, recently, representatives of minorities have been obtaining concealed carry permits much more frequently than the white population of the country. For example, over the last 10 years in North Carolina, the number of permits issued to Black people has grown twice as much compared to whites.
Overall, 7.3% of Americans have a permit for the concealed carry of weapons. Of course, considering that in 16 states it is sufficient to legally own a weapon to have the right to carry it concealed, and assuming that some people own and carry weapons illegally, the number of owners and carriers still should not be that much higher, given that according to 60% of Americans, gun laws need to be made even stricter.
As we can see, there is no absolutely universal armament in the USA, meaning no uniform balance of violence potential. And the armament that does exist is distributed very unevenly. For this reason, the example of the USA cannot tell us anything about how universal armament affects society.
As a critique of Lorenz’s theory, I am often sent images where an enraged bear or lion inflicts fatal injuries on another member of its species. But how can this be, since they are heavily armed species, and Lorenz’s mechanism, which inhibits intraspecific violence, is weakly expressed in them? Does this not mean that in reality, violence does not threaten the survival of any species, and the Lorenz mechanism is merely a fiction? Let us examine this question much more deeply than those who make such claims have done.
In this argument, the second premise—the pressure of natural selection to strengthen the Lorenz mechanism—is always overlooked. This is the impossibility of escaping in the event of an attack, or the inherent inability of certain species to avoid situations that lead to violence. In the case of solitary species, such as bears or jaguars, it is very easy to see where an escape occurs—they basically do not contact other members of their species outside of the mating season or the process of raising offspring. Of course, the presence of an intraspecific violence inhibitor is not that necessary for them, as they very rarely find themselves in a situation that makes the commission of violence possible.
As for lions, one should look at their social life. In natural conditions, male lions, upon reaching a certain age, leave their natal pride in search of a new one or to create their own. There are usually no more than three adult males in one pride. The low concentration of violence-prone individuals within specific social units also reduces the risks of violence, and they become far less threatening; thus, no evolutionary pressure arises to develop a strong version of the Lorenz mechanism. If you show me a lion tearing another apart, then that is exactly the case where the concentration of violence-prone individuals became too high. In artificial parks or enclosures, dozens of adult male lions are often in one society, so the probability of a fatal fight increases significantly.
In addition to this premise, I would also like to recall the argument that animals are sometimes prone to killing and eating the offspring of others, or even their own, in case of food shortages or under stress. Obviously, the activation of the Lorenz mechanism could not have developed here because juvenile individuals do not yet have developed weaponry; therefore, an adult individual committing an act of violence against them does not risk dying and thus never fails to pass on its weak version of the violence-inhibiting mechanism. When there are insufficient resources to support its own offspring, a mother’s decision to kill them in no way affects the survival of the species as a whole. And the inhibition of killing the offspring of others is sufficiently handled by the innate weaponry of their own mothers.
One could try to provide many examples of why the Lorenz mechanism does not work, but if you dig deeper, there will always be an explanation that fits the premises necessary for its development. Simply try to analyze each such case in more detail, and you will see it for yourself.
We have already previously considered the topic of why it is profitable for corporations to fight against violence. In order to produce new products and generate profit from their sales, it is extremely important for them to develop and implement new technologies. However, if violence as a general phenomenon continues to exist, further scientific and technical progress will simply become impossible. New technologies also provide new opportunities for committing acts of violence, including catastrophic ones. Imagine if a smartphone battery became energy-dense enough to cause a large explosion, or if home computers became powerful enough to allow any random person to create and test viruses using artificial intelligence for simulation, which could then be recreated in real life using a DNA/RNA synthesizer that has also become more advanced and accessible. For corporations, this is a collapse; they must participate in solving the problem of violence to preserve and increase their own income. You can find more details on this argument in the material “Corporations Against Violence”.
But one must consider not only the risks of individual acts of violence. If dangerous technologies available to the general masses have not yet been released on the market—meaning corporations have nothing to worry about in that regard for now—then violence on the part of the state threatens them directly already. Recall what recently happened to Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group. Due to critical remarks regarding state economic regulation, the Chinese authorities began to pressure him in every way and destroy him as a businessman. In general, China has taken up the harsh subordination of all large technological corporations on its territory.
Such a scenario could happen to any billionaire and any corporation. Well-known figures such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, or Jeff Bezos possess enormous funds and influence in society. But the state can nullify all of this at any moment by applying certain sanctions supported by security forces, who are always ready to forcibly compel obedience if the orders of a stationary bandit are not followed. Using China as an example, we clearly see that rulers like “Comrade Xi” do not care at all about the funds and influence of corporations and their owners; for the sake of their own desires, authoritarians will take all of this by brute force.
It would be correct to note that specific governments may not be interested in using force against corporations. But what guarantees eternal power to those specific people in government? Nothing! Sooner or later, power always changes. And if the current government is peaceful enough not to threaten corporations, the next government—regardless of whether it was elected democratically or seized power in an armed coup (although this scenario is more dangerous, as it most often brings deranged dictators to power)—could well declare so-called “nationalization” for corporations and subject the corporation owners to harsh repression. Moreover, such changes can occur even within a single administration—after all, nothing can guarantee its commitment to the same interests over a long period of time.
For these reasons, it is quite profitable for corporations to invest in the fight against violence, and they will do so if initiatives to combat violence become noticeable enough to attract their attention. It is far better to invest a few percent of their profit in balancing the potential for violence or, for technology companies, to participate in the development of gene therapy against violence, rather than constantly risk being destroyed by violence.
The development of biotechnology is bringing us closer to a moment when it will be possible to create gene therapy capable of activating the violence-inhibiting mechanism in humans that Konrad Lorenz wrote about. However, along with this comes the risk of the emergence of a completely opposite gene therapy aimed specifically at eliminating any inhibitors of violence in a person. Therefore, some may consider the idea of creating gene therapy against violence to be useless, since if it can be made, then gene therapy to unleash violent potential can also be made. Demand for it may be found among some psychopaths, maniacs, and people who overly value their violent nature, consider it the meaning of their life, and are unwilling to part with it because of some dart with a drug fired at them during another attack. Additionally, some groups of people (supporters of authoritarian power) may consider it important to achieve certain goals by force, meaning that the security personnel executing these orders must be protected from the risk of losing their capacity for violence.
Of course, the vast majority of scientists are against violence, and it is unlikely that any of them would engage in such developments. But what will happen if there is someone among them who decides to help violent degenerates? Let’s go through it step by step:
1) There is a possibility of the uncontrolled spread of a drug that disables the Lorenz mechanism, and if this happens, the entire world will sink into violence and wars, and the survival of humanity will become impossible (practically repeating a typical scenario from a zombie movie).
2) This risk will lead to the necessity of creating updated gene therapy against violence. It may be capable of preventing the disabling of the Lorenz mechanism by any means; however, if this cannot be guaranteed, the only remaining option will be to ensure that a person dies from an attempt to remove their own restrictions on violent behavior. Allowing the survival of people striving for violence in such a situation is simply impossible; otherwise, the previously mentioned scenario will occur.
3) After this, a fairly rapid equalization of the balance of violent potential will occur, and absolute universal armament will be achieved (it will become clear to every average person that weapons in such a world are the only guarantee of survival). The new status quo will be maintained by the fact that a minority of sadists will be afraid to deactivate the Lorenz mechanism to attack the majority of non-violent people, who are capable of destroying them at the first attempt to initiate violence.
4) The stationary bandit (the state) will survive neither the appearance of gene therapy against violence, as it would then lose the ability to impose its order by force, nor the appearance of a blocker for the violence-inhibiting mechanism, because in that case, the security forces working for it would receive Molotov cocktails, bottles of sulfuric acid, infectious agents, bursts of automatic gunfire, etc., instead of peaceful protests, from the very people who removed their restrictions on violence and will manifest it toward everyone, including them. Zombie movies, although pure fiction, nevertheless quite accurately convey what would happen to the state in such a scenario.
As a result, it turns out that creating a drug to disable violence-inhibiting mechanisms will also lead to the elimination of the stationary bandit, whom supporters of authoritarian power and force-based measures love so much and consider the best mechanism for achieving any goals. They do not understand this, but even worse, they do not understand the catastrophic scenario that the creation of such a drug would lead to if gene therapy against violence is not updated in time according to the parameters in the second point, or at least if the balance of violent potential is not equalized so that all resulting rapists/violent offenders can be liquidated during their attack.
As you know, proponents of voluntarism and ideas of non-violence actively advocate for non-violent measures for damage compensation, as well as punishments for those who violate agreements and criminals, such as ostracism, financial sanctions, deposits, transaction insurance, etc. The use of force is permissible only for the purpose of self-defense against a direct attack; in other cases, violence is absolutely unacceptable. There are many reasons why such a behavioral model is most optimal, which I have already discussed extensively in my previous materials. Now, we will examine one very common argument aimed at discrediting non-violent measures.
So, I am talking about reputational institutions and ostracism, about how a person who violates agreements or has committed an act of violence in the past can be blacklisted and denied future transactions. And do you know what argument often follows? “This looks like the social credit system in China, you are actually inhuman totalitarians! This is the ‘cancel culture’ currently practiced in the West; you just want to cruelly torture people and deprive them of the right to a normal life!”
Now I want to ask a question to those who express such criticism. What alternative do you propose? Let me guess: should everyone who has erred be beaten with clubs, dragged through courts in handcuffs, or perhaps locked behind bars for many years? Nothing else can be proposed; there is only one alternative to our non-violent measures—violent measures. So, how does it work: we, with our ostracism and financial sanctions, are inhuman totalitarians, but your clubs and prisons are humane and extremely civil tools? If anyone believes this, they are simply a complete idiot!
And, by the way, we do not propose a lifelong “cancellation” of the offending person, which some also mention. In fact, it can be avoided entirely: if a person immediately admits their guilt and willingness to compensate for the damage, no ostracism or blacklists threaten them. In the end, everyone benefits if the perpetrator works off the damage they caused at their own pace and in conditions where they can work with maximum productivity. Also, to put a person behind bars, you will need to forcibly take a portion of peaceful people’s funds (i.e., forcibly tax them) to maintain the prison infrastructure and the prisoner himself. Of course, if someone doesn’t mind paying for this—let them pay, and let them offer criminals their own measure for lifting ostracism in the form of voluntary imprisonment. But I do not want to pay for this. What will you do, beat me with a club too? Then you are a violent aggressor, absolutely no better than any other!
Furthermore, one should not say that non-violent measures won’t work because a criminal can bypass them simply by committing further acts of violence and stealing for their own sustenance. Even in such a case, their life would be extremely unpleasant, since a whole range of goods and services cannot simply be taken and stolen, and if a criminal decides to attack, they can be stopped by means of self-defense. Do not forget that we advocate for general armament and have nothing against self-defense during a direct attack!
There is one very effective method for eradicating violence that few people usually think about. It is quite obvious — violence can be eliminated by preventing people with violent tendencies from procreating. The violent tendencies of some people may be genetically determined, so it is obvious that their children are also most likely to inherit this violence. Furthermore, abusers provide very poor upbringing for their children and raise them in an unstable environment, which pushes them to become abusers themselves in the future.
But how can this be achieved? We cannot use force to compel such people not to reproduce, as we would then be no better than them, and by applying violence, we would be introducing negative externalities of our own. However, this can be done by resorting to a series of non-violent measures.
First and foremost, reputational institutions must be used. People who have committed acts of violence should be exposed and ostracized, thereby lowering their well-being. It is also very important to discredit them among their close circle, such as relatives, friends, and neighbors. It is entirely acceptable to exert pressure on people in this circle, for example, by threatening to ostracize those who cooperate with the abuser. In principle, this is logical, as ostracism is not an effective tool if the people cooperating with the criminal are not also declared criminals to whom corresponding sanctions can be applied, because otherwise these people will have fewer incentives not to cooperate with him, meaning ostracism will not be applied sufficiently.
Thus, the abuser’s environment can quite well renounce him or, at the very least, begin to exert pressure on him from their side. And a person with a ruined reputation, a low level of well-being, who poses risks in any relationship, and who is additionally under pressure from those subjects who still cannot give up cooperation with him, has very low chances of finding a partner and starting a family.
In addition to reputational methods, other tools can be used, one of which we will consider now. There are agencies that, for a certain fee, are capable of arranging a series of events that are highly likely to lead to the deterioration of relationships between people, for example, to the divorce of a married couple. In our case, this can be applied against people with violent tendencies who are in relationships or marriages. Funds to pay for the services of such agencies can be collected through donations from concerned people, for example, by announcing a crowdfunding initiative to eradicate violence.
It is especially important to prevent those people from procreating who work for a stationary gangster and carry out his instructions to use force, that is, the security forces. They are most often people with violent tendencies, for who else would go to protect a violent power and, on its instructions, commit acts of violence against innocent people—for example, beating them at rallies or breaking into their homes for a “wrong” post on social networks.
And, which is very important for us, they receive a giant bonus to reproduction. Security forces have many benefits; they can count on free housing, discounted public transport, recreation and treatment in health resorts, they have education benefits, an early retirement age, and large pension payments. Thus, security forces receive very favorable conditions for reproduction, at least more favorable than ordinary people. Unfortunately, I have not found statistics on the number of children among security forces, but I venture to suggest that, on average, the fertility level in their families is much higher than in ordinary families. This only increases the number of people prone to violence. This state of affairs must be destroyed as soon as possible; then the problem of violence will begin to be solved even without the physical removal of aggressors from the population.
