Supporters of state intervention in social life to prohibit certain actions (the sale and use of drugs, speeding, overtaking on a solid line, organizing certain types of businesses like gambling) justify the existence of “victimless crime” laws by the reduction of the risk of significant harm. Their logic is roughly as follows: when you drive at 200 km/h, you are not killing anyone, of course, but you increase the probability of fatal consequences. It is similar with drug prohibitions—etatists believe that prohibitions are necessary to reduce the likelihood of children “getting hooked on the needle,” as they are less likely to try drugs (and harm their own health) if their sale is prohibited.
Unfortunately, etatists lack the intellect and knowledge to understand one simple thing—by threatening violence (which is what any “law”-command from a stationary bandit actually is), you will never reduce the number of deaths or health impairments. The threat of violence only creates a market incentive to create super-destructive deterrence weapons, including doomsday weapons, so that violence against you becomes unprofitable for the aggressor (in this case, the state). The example of North Korea’s Kim demonstrates this perfectly (he would not have created WMDs if the US authorities had not given him the corresponding incentive through the exemplary execution of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi).
Do you think a state ban on the sale of “weed” will save thousands of lives? It might save some, but the ratio of benefits to costs must be calculated. Let’s say the weed dealer is not just some random Joe, but someone well-versed in deterrence theory. He robs the Vector storage facility in Novosibirsk, and when the state tries to “put him on a stake,” he threatens to release the stolen viruses. Suppose that instead of recognizing the inadmissibility of violence in any form (as should be done), the authorities send special forces to put a bullet in his head. But he proved to be prudent, hiding the viruses disguised as drug “stashes” and creating an analogue of the “dead hand” system. After his death, these stashes were automatically put up for sale as ordinary drugs, someone bought them, opened them… and found natural smallpox inside. A few days later, a global pandemic began, resulting in the death of a third of the population. That was the “price” of saving drug addicts’ lives through the threat of state violence!
I suggest that etatists be consistent. Do you want the prohibition of victimless “crimes” through state violence? Fine, just prohibit not only drugs and gambling, but everything that increases the risk of causing harm. First and foremost, this is the creation of market incentives for obtaining WMDs as a means of deterrence. One could even add an article to the criminal code: “Incitement to the development and production of weapons of mass destruction.” I only fear that you personally will be the first defendants in a criminal case under it!
The team I previously had the honor of representing has released their latest video, partially based on my script, which in turn was based on Bitarch’s article of the same name. On boosty, I posted a whole series of iterations showing how the script evolved. The next video is already terra incognita; my work is not involved there, and I am curious to see what they come up with. If it turns out well, who knows, perhaps I will be able to hand over my main text channel to someone over time.
Readers are wondering why Bitarch’s share on my channel has grown so sharply. It’s quite simple: he purchased a subscription for such publications for 5,000 rubles per month. These terms turned out to be more convenient for me than pondering every time whether or not to post a particular piece of material he suggested for free. Similarly, I guaranteed to answer questions accompanied by donations, while all others will be answered as I can.
By the way, speaking of questions. I want to test a certain model. I have created a separate subscription level on boosty for 50 rubles a month. Subscribers will see all the questions I receive and will be able to mark in the comments which ones they would be interested in seeing answered. In this way, even if a question was not accompanied by a donation, a paid subscriber can promote it (Of course, subscribers of more expensive plans will also have this capability). As we know from economic theory, it is through the pricing structure that real human needs are determined. Let’s see how this works in our case.
The idea of universal armament and unlimited self-defense is often criticized from the position that it will lead to an increase in the number of unjustified killings. In this matter, the following formulation is often used: “Do you really advocate for the ability to use a weapon against a person and thereby threaten their priceless life simply because they attacked you with their fists, started approaching with threats, or broke into your home? Most likely, the attacker only wishes to simply hit, beat, or rob you. But injuries can almost always be healed, and material values are not even close to being worth it.” Let us examine this issue in more detail.
People who allow themselves to engage in violent behavior, even if it is not lethal, are still aggressors. Violent tendencies are a part of their personality that they should realize as early as possible and make every effort to overcome. But if a person is satisfied with their violence, if they do not intend to do anything about it and refuse any offers of help, then they represent only a greater threat to other people, introducing multiple negative externalities into their lives.
Some might think that according to my logic, one should specifically seek out all people prone to aggressive violence to take preventive measures. However, this is not the case. It is impossible to know for certain if a person is truly a violent offender until they manifest their violence in practice. But even if a person has committed an act of violence previously but is not manifesting it now, they should not be attacked for any purpose (punishment, extorting compensation, forced coercion into psychotherapy). In the end, by attacking them, we ourselves become aggressors wishing to forcibly subject other people to our orders, which would also introduce negative externalities into our lives and the lives of everyone else.
However, if a person decides to attack you here and now, it is an unconditional fact that they are an aggressor and a violent offender threatening your life and the lives of other people. Furthermore, through their violence, they show that they are not averse to using force to impose their own orders, which is already a very dangerous tendency. To destroy them is to get rid of the threat arising from it. Imagine that through their acts of aggression, they can accumulate a potential for violence. Then they will gain power and turn everyone around them into their own slaves. Can you really consider the life of a person valuable who does not consider life valuable themselves and, at the first opportunity, will organize slavery or even genocide for the people around them?
I personally cannot. Of course, I will not attack such a person myself, because by doing so, I would be no better than they are. But if they attack me, I will rid myself of them, thereby making my life and the lives of other people safer. And if all aggressors are destroyed during their attacks, then non-violence in people will be reinforced purely evolutionarily, since only people who do not manifest or who control aggression will be able to continue their lineage both biologically—since aggressive tendencies can be genetically determined—and in terms of upbringing, as good parents have far greater chances of raising good children than aggressor parents.
Supporters of authoritarian-right (conservative) ideas should consider whether the financial and economic freedom they so praise is even compatible with the persistence of physical violence in society.
Those who believe that free economic relations can be ensured in a society where violent activity is permissible—and where a strong centralized organ of violence exists—are making a fairly significant mistake. Let us correct this error.
Let us first note that the problem is much broader than state violence, meaning that the mere destruction of the “stationary bandit” will not solve it. The problem lies in aggressive violence as such, regardless of its source. The public will only continue to support states in strengthening financial control as long as the threat of financing violent activity, such as terrorism, exists. And even in a stateless society, people, fearing they will become victims of violence, will continue to pressure free and independent financial structures to control the flow of finances as strictly as possible. Moreover, the structures themselves are interested in control, as violence threatens them as well.
Perhaps you have heard of cases where some European banks voluntarily blocked the accounts of cryptocurrency traders due to suspicion of financing terrorism, even though the traders provided all legally required documents within the AML/KYC procedure. The state did not compel the banks to do this, but they nevertheless decided to forego a portion of their profits to reduce potential reputational damage (if the cryptocurrency was indeed obtained for jihadism or contract killings and this later surfaced, clients concerned with their own reputation would not want to do business with these banks, even if the banks had done everything correctly from the perspective of state law).
Also, do not forget that in a society with an unresolved problem of violence, financial control will inevitably grow with scientific and technical progress, as potential violent actors will have more opportunities to cause significant harm—for example, by using high-capacity energy sources, new types of explosives, or even biological threats in the form of intentional viral infection (DNA synthesizers are becoming more accessible every year).
Where will all this lead? To the fact that many market agents, driven by fear, will most thoroughly verify the origin of funds of any subjects entering into transactions with them. After all, who would want to conduct a transaction with a person who earns their money by selling explosives to terrorists, thereby putting their own life at risk?
As a result, transaction costs will only increase, and any inaccuracies or suspicions will lead to the blocking of bank accounts and the seizure of funds from a suspicious person, just to ensure that violence is avoided. Many may be caught in the crossfire for no reason (the problem of “false positives” remains). This will clearly slow down the economy, making it quite inefficient, which will ultimately lead to a sharp decline in people’s well-being and the stagnation of progress. Even the use of uncontrollable financial instruments, such as cryptocurrencies, will not help, as they will be useless if the majority of agents in the economy refuse to accept them, again, fearing a violent origin.
Conservatives may object—that this is exactly why a strong state is needed: to deter violence. They believe that if it is properly organized within constitutional frameworks that limit its growth, it is possible to ensure both economic freedom, so people can earn money and engage in entrepreneurial activity without hindrance, and a low level of violence.
However, a strong state cannot exist without financial control; for its existence, it needs enormous funds, which can only be obtained by levying high taxes on people and enterprises, as well as by using monopoly privileges in a significant portion of economic spheres. A strong state is incompatible with a free economy. And even a weak, minimal state is also incompatible, as it always degenerates into a strong state; politicians cannot be stopped from expanding their powers, as we have clearly observed throughout the history of states. Even the most seemingly liberal states, such as Switzerland, strengthen economic control over their citizens every day.
Moreover, politicians have interested groups of people supporting them and many justifications for increasing control—be it the expansion of state social programs, the increase of defense capabilities, or the supposed development of the economy. The latter is the most absurd thing one could imagine—how can the violent extraction of funds from the economy through the taxation of its participants, as well as the strict limitation of their activities in certain economic spheres, help it develop? Nonsense! Yet some interested groups follow even such nonsense.
I think it should now be clear that the fight against violence as a phenomenon in general is critically important for achieving financial freedom and all its accompanying positive aspects. And social models that permit the initiation of violence—whether it be state-monopolized and centralized, or private and independent—clearly contradict financial freedom.
In the modern world, the fight against the phenomenon of violence plays a critically important role, as we could very well face the use of weaponry of an extremely destructive scale. And I am far from talking about nuclear weapons. Even the most powerful nuclear warhead would only be enough to destroy and radioactively contaminate a small city and its surroundings, and even the multiple use of nuclear charges, in the worst case, would only destroy a part of humanity, increase the rate of oncological diseases, lower the quality of life, and temporarily halt technological progress, but many people would survive such an event and would have a chance to deal with the resulting situation.
One should not think that weaponry truly capable of destroying humanity is merely a future prospect that is still far off. Usually, such weaponry is envisioned as a very powerful energy source, such as antimatter, of which even a small amount would be enough to completely destroy the biosphere of an entire planet. Of course, violent tendencies in people should be fought against for the sake of ensuring there are no psychopaths in the future capable of arranging such a thing, although with such advanced technologies, there will likely be no problem with conducting genetic therapy and modifying embryos aimed at combating violent tendencies as a congenital disease, which is impossible at the current level of progress. Nevertheless, this is also necessary against the threat that exists right now.
But what is this threat? A fairly obvious, yet widely underestimated threat: the viral destruction of humanity. Look at what is happening now. Even a relatively weak coronavirus, whose level of infectivity and lethality does not come close to values capable of putting human civilization face-to-face with catastrophic losses, let alone its destruction, was still enough to cause quite a stir and demonstrate people’s inability to deal with a viral threat effectively enough. Furthermore, let us not forget that the production of a vaccine is generally a matter very demanding of time and resources.
However, what do people’s violent tendencies have to do with this? The fact that in modern conditions, arranging an artificial pandemic, even one much more serious than the coronavirus, is not difficult at all. Research laboratories store various samples of viruses, including quite dangerous ones. Additionally, they have the capabilities to create artificial (synthetic) viruses that are more infectious and deadly than those that arose in the natural environment.
Now let us imagine several scenarios capable of leading to an irreparable catastrophe. For example, an employee of one of such laboratories, possessing aggressive tendencies, realizes the power available to them, seizes virus samples, hides them in different places, and threatens to release them if humanity does not make concessions to them. Or, the laboratory could be seized by a group of people who also have an interest in subordinating everyone to their conditions, or, worse, fulfilling some fanatic’s prophetic scenario of an apocalypse. And there is no need to say that this problem will be solved as soon as governments realize the full danger of such scenarios and decide to significantly strengthen the security of such facilities. The mobilization of force would only demonstrate to all interested parties and individuals with aggressive tendencies where they can obtain the power to realize their plans; likewise, strengthening control would increase the level of stress among the population and the facility’s workers, which would only intensify such a risk. Let us also not forget that governments can experience crises, and someone might take advantage of weakened control and the turmoil during one of them. Also, someone might attempt to collect a set of pathogens slowly but surely, in different places and in different convenient situations, storing them for a long time until the necessary quantity is gathered.
From there, the matter is not particularly complicated—a psychopath who has seized virus samples either achieves, effectively, universal slavery before their power and the establishment of totalitarian violent orders, or releases them into the wild. If the pathogens are not particularly dangerous individually, but there are many of them and they are released in different places, people will have to fight all of them simultaneously. Now imagine how difficult this is, given that the struggle against even one coronavirus required numerous efforts and, nonetheless, was not effective enough to get rid of it even to some extent over nearly ten months since the start of the pandemic.
Furthermore, a psychopath might release only one virus, but one that is laboratory-developed. Imagine, for instance, a laboratory modification of HIV capable of surviving outside the human body, and thus being transmitted through touch, shared use of items, and airborne droplets. Considering that such a virus, like HIV, would have a fairly long incubation period, a lot of time could pass before it is noticed; however, due to the efficient routes of spread, it would already be too late—almost everyone would already be infected.
One should not rely on the mobilization of resources for the development of a vaccine and effective treatment either. In the case of fighting a large number of viruses simultaneously, one would have to conduct many research and development projects at once using the same resource base, which would greatly reduce the efficiency of each individual study. And a scenario involving a single artificially engineered dangerous virus could be catastrophic due to the very nature of the virus, which is difficult to research and treat. Let us not forget that the nature of HIV itself has made it impossible to invent a vaccine against it for decades, since it attacks the immune cells that, in the case of other viruses, are used to fight them, but cannot resist HIV due to their own infection. The only case of cure occurred during a bone marrow transplant from a person with a congenital mutation that prevents HIV from attaching to immune cells. However, such people are very few, and the material obtained from them cannot be used for mass treatment. Therefore, the scenario from many pandemic movies, in which antibodies developed in the organism of a “patient zero” are used to cure everyone after they are found, will not work either, as, again, the amount of material is very, very limited, while the virus meanwhile kills thousands of infected and is transmitted to thousands and millions more.
In a very rapid and destructive pandemic, the impossibility of resisting it is further caused by the fact that under such conditions, the infrastructure for the production and delivery of necessary means would be severely damaged, or even completely destroyed. Even if the scientists in the laboratory and those guarding them do not scatter in fear and panic, they will have difficulties obtaining the materials necessary for conducting research and development; they might even face a shortage of basic goods, such as food, which would make the further pursuit of their activities impossible.
I think there should be no more doubts about how real and catastrophic the threat of viral destruction of humanity is. If any of the scenarios I have listed occurs, then 99% of people face extinction, and the remaining 1%—those who hid well or have innate protection—will unlikely be able to revive human civilization; even if these people survive, they will have to start their journey from absolute zero, and moreover in a world where remnants of pathogens lie everywhere.
That is precisely why it is necessary to fight violence as a phenomenon in general, the result of which will be the eradication of violent tendencies in all of humanity. It is important to promote the idea of the viral destruction of humanity so that people understand the seriousness of the situation now and can begin to act. Perhaps it will be possible to get rid of violent tendencies with the help of biological technologies, such as the same genetic therapy aimed at eradicating violent tendencies just as vaccination is aimed at protecting against viral infection. However, this method is doubtful due to the insufficient level of technical progress at this moment. Therefore, the most realistic scenario would be the equalization of the Balance of Violence Potential—achieving a state in which different subjects have approximately equal opportunities to inflict unacceptable (including lethal) damage on each other. Under such conditions, people who do not have strong violent tendencies will be able to continue their lives, and they will have fewer incentives to lean toward acts of violence. And those who cannot live without violence will, through their own attacks on other people, run headlong into danger, be liquidated, and leave no offspring. This scenario is based on a scheme derived by ethologist Konrad Lorenz, which you can read about in detail here.
In closing, I will not forget to say that the achievement of freedom from violent tendencies must happen before the idea of using laboratory viruses for one’s own purposes occurs to someone who has access to them or the ability to seize them. Otherwise, catastrophe is inevitable.
“Revenge is a risky business because, if the enemy is dangerous enough to have harmed you, it is unlikely he will accept punishment without resistance.” Steven Pinker.
Bitarch and Voluntarist after consultation with a professional biologist
In connection with the recent publications from Bitarch regarding the construction of a non-violent society, I would like to recommend the anime series Psycho-Pass to everyone. Three seasons have been released, plus some side stories; so far, I have only watched the first.
The main protagonist of the series is a quasi-minarchist society in which an effective method for the prevention of violence has been developed, but not through genetic modification and BPN, as Bitarch suggests, but through the creation of a Big Brother capable of rapid diagnosis of tendencies toward violence. In all other matters, the state does not particularly interfere, although in the area of material production, it is unclear whether it is a market or socialism—under conditions of robotic abundance, it is easy to confuse the two.
The series is intelligent. It quotes Weber, Shakespeare, Pascal, Foucault, and discusses William Gibson and Philip K. Dick—in short, it is the kind of thing that our Ekaterina Schulmann would not be ashamed to recommend, although she prefers Pixar studio productions. It might be a bit difficult to watch at first; I got into it on my second attempt—but it is definitely worth the time spent.
Many believe that conducting effective campaigns to eradicate aggressive violence from society is impossible through the activities of volunteers alone. However, the eradication of violence is beneficial not only to those for whom it is a personal interest, but also to high-tech entrepreneurs and corporations. Now, we will examine why they will inevitably invest in such an initiative.
Before answering this question, we should examine the current state of affairs regarding Scientific and Technological Progress (STP). Three subsequent scenarios can be listed:
1) Rejection of STP. In this case, the limited resources of our planet will not be enough to provide for the needs of humanity, even if the population decreases and people consume less. Resources will still run out, just a bit later. Furthermore, Earth’s existence is allotted a limited amount of time. Rejection of STP means the extinction of humanity in any case.
2) Promotion of STP without the eradication of violence. But STP is inevitably linked to an increase in energy consumption and the creation of potentially dangerous technologies. It can be expected that in the future, this will lead to the mass proliferation of very high-capacity but dangerous energy sources and carriers, such as atomic batteries, or even antimatter. Obviously, in such a case, any person could cause a local, or even global, catastrophe.
3) The promotion of STP is inextricably linked with the eradication of violence. Dangerous and energy-intensive technologies no longer threaten people; on the contrary, they serve their development and the survival of humanity as a whole.
Obviously, only the third scenario can be acceptable. But what do entrepreneurs and corporations have to do with this? It’s simple. This scenario is also the most profitable for them, even in purely monetary terms. A very large fortune can be made from the sale of products based on dangerous technologies. Imagine for yourself how much profit the sale of flying cars with built-in nuclear reactors, DNA synthesizers (although this technology does not threaten a big explosion, it can be used to create some deadly virus), or private transport for space travel would bring?
Of course, some will say that such technologies are still far off. But it does not matter whether we are close to this or far. The moment when only one step remains toward such inventions will come sooner or later, and perhaps it has already arrived. Government regulations, and overall the fear of catastrophic consequences of introducing new technologies into operation, will become barriers to further progress. STP, which is critically important for the survival of humanity, will cease.
But what is also important, within the framework of the topic we are considering, is the loss of profit for entrepreneurs and corporations. They will not be able to sell what cannot be sold due to bans or fears. But they will not be able to give up potential profit. That is why we can confidently expect that the initiative to eradicate violence will find support among them; they will certainly invest a lot of funds into such a cause, because in the end, it will all pay off handsomely!
By the way, for the reasons listed above, it is not profitable for corporations to become violent agents themselves (for example, states), because this will inevitably lead to the use of dangerous technologies, which, in turn, will destroy their entire business.
Balance of Violence Potential (BVP), or more accurately, the uniform distribution of violence potential, is a certain state in society where any person is capable of inflicting unacceptable damage on another in a local clash. For simplicity, BVP can be viewed as maximum universal armament in society, where absolutely every resident of a given territory possesses a weapon for personal self-defense, for example, a pistol or even such ersatz weaponry as a blinding laser or a poison dart, preferably several units, so that it would be impossible to disarm anyone. It is assumed that residents of this territory have the opportunity (or rather an obligation in the form of a cultural norm) to possess weapons based on their physiological capabilities without any legal barriers (for example, age, citizenship, “criminal records” for activities undesirable from the state’s point of view) and financial need (volunteers and high-tech corporations will help the poor obtain weapons for free, just as vaccination is currently helped in poor countries, since this is profitable for them as well).
By what means will BVP reduce/eradicate violence? In a multitude of different ways:
1) Classical deterrence doctrine (“deterrence by punishment”) against rational aggressors. Knowing that the victim of violence can inflict unacceptable damage on the aggressor, including even killing them, the aggressor will think carefully and decide that the benefit from violence will be less than the costs and will ultimately renounce violence.
There is a good example of such a model in the wild — porcupines. Cheetahs also frequently live in porcupine habitats, and they are hundreds of times superior in physical strength. But here is the surprising part: a cheetah can theoretically maul and eat a porcupine, but practically never does. There are occasional stupid individuals who decide to do so, but as a result, they either die or sustain such injuries that they never dare to try again.
2) Deterrence through denial (“deterrence by denial”) against invader states. The authorities of such a state set a specific goal — to conquer a territory and subjugate its residents. An aggressor can, of course, drop a nuclear bomb, but radioactive land without residents is worth absolutely nothing. As for the political elite of the aggressor, this is the end, because their own population will tear them to pieces for such an act. It would also create a dangerous precedent for the permissibility of using WMDs against civilians and legitimize the creation of strategic deterrent weapons by everyone capable of doing so (even now, a biohacker student is capable of multiplying a deadly virus and does not do so only for moral reasons).
3) The impossibility of creating and maintaining a violently hierarchical structure in a society with BVP. In such a society, the use of violence locally between people becomes unprofitable; accordingly, it is impossible to create and maintain a larger hierarchy of dominance (for example, a state) through the sequential accumulation of resources in the format of a “military hegemon.”
For example, an aggressor Vasya, having only a pistol, attacks Petya to use his resources to buy a Kalashnikov assault rifle. With it, he can attack Sasha with doubled force, buying a tank with the resources taken from him. Using this tank, he can attack billionaire Vanya with tripled force, who can even afford serious security, and use the obtained resources to hire a large army to conquer the entire country. But in the case of universal armament (uniform BVP), Vasya would be destroyed at the very beginning of his bloody path.
Imagine what would have happened if “little aliens” in the 1960s had arranged a “rain of pistols” over St. Petersburg? A teenager Pynya, who was prone to violence from birth, would with a probability close to 100% have died in a clash the next day, and the question of how to deal with him now would simply not be on the agenda.
4) Forcing natural selection that removes those prone to violence from the population. Analyzing many different species, biologist Konrad Lorenz found an interesting pattern — in animal species with strong innate armament (for example, hedgehogs, poisonous snakes, and insects) that allows them to very effectively inflict unacceptable damage on any opponent in a clash, an innate intra-species morality of non-aggression developed (more precisely — an instinct of aversion to initiating physical violence against a member of their own species), because otherwise the survival of the species would be under threat. This happened as a result of the most violence-prone individuals being destroyed during acts of aggression and thus failing to produce offspring. In humans, such a morality of non-aggression did not develop because humans are not a naturally heavily armed species; the mortality of fights with bare fists without the use of any additional means is very low, therefore there was no pressure from natural selection to develop this trait. More precisely, such a neurobiological mechanism also exists in the species homo sapiens, but in a very weak form. But if BVP is leveled in society, the pressure of natural selection will strengthen it in homo sapiens to the level of heavily armed species, since carriers of gene variants that cause less aversion to the initiation of violence in humans will be removed from the population before they even have a chance to pass them to the next generation.
As a reminder, Bitarch’s main idea is as follows. The cost of weapons is decreasing, their destructive power is increasing, and then we extrapolate the graph of the number of weapons over time and find that after some time, one person will be able to destroy all of humanity with a simple flick of the wrist. To prevent this, Bitarch suggests tying people’s hands in advance; they will not be able to make simple movements with them, and thus humanity will be saved.
How to tie their hands? Universal armament is required. In this case, any attempt on another person’s life must lead to the instantaneous destruction of the aggressor. Under such conditions, rational agents will not dare to encroach upon anyone’s life.
But there is a problem: besides attempts on life, there are also encroachments on property, and property rights are a matter of agreement between people and can be disputed. Therefore, Bitarch postulates: using violence to protect one’s property is unacceptable. If you are asked to choose between your wallet or your life—you can choose life, and upon an attempt on your life, destroy the assailant. But if, for example, some squatters occupy your temporarily empty house, you’re screwed. In the best case, you can ask the utility workers to cut off their electricity. And even then, it’s unclear if they will accommodate you if the squatters are paying for the electricity.
How to solve such problems? “However you like,” Bitarch answers, “these are your problems, as long as there is no violence.” And he provides as an inspiring example a tale about how states, under the threat of violence, banned the use of DDT instead of leaving it to the market. With the help of the state club, they defeated DDT, defeated ozone holes, are defeating global warming and coronavirus, are defeating common sense—they will manage violence too.
Etatism is an intellectual disease in which a person places the presumed values of imaginary collective subjects above real individual values.
On the evening of September 18, near Krasnoyarsk, a group of about ten public activists relaxing at a libertarian-conservative camp Krest Kappelya was attacked by a similar number of rioters wearing balaclavas and armed with clubs. The camp participants were seriously beaten, and their phones, some belongings, and tents were seized and destroyed, and their passports were burned. The attackers did not hide the political nature of the assault.
One of those attacked managed to escape, take cover at an empty summer house, and contact the police. As far as I can tell, it is about a three-hour drive from the Emelyanovo district center to the camp site; therefore, the police made excuses until the last moment, unwilling to venture into the wilderness at night, and only deployed after the attack gained publicity. By the time the police arrived, the camp site was already empty, and by morning, details of the attack and photos of the beaten activists began to appear. They made their own way to the nearest settlement and from there were evacuated to Krasnoyarsk.
Information regarding exactly where the camp would take place was not readily available in open sources. On the camp’s VK public page, it was suggested to contact the organizers personally for additional information. Thus, potential attackers would have had to either organize surveillance or have prior data on the camp’s location.
I am posting all these details for the following understanding:
Your political activism can lead to an attack by paramilitaries.
In such an attack, it will be difficult for you to encounter an opponent who is fully prepared for combat. In this case, the attack happened in the dark on people sitting by a campfire with a guitar—an almost ideal setup for the attackers. Even if you happen to have a weapon with you, using it would be problematic, and after the attack, you will almost certainly lose it.
Meetings in deserted places are not conspiracy. If they set a goal to find you, they will find you, but you, conversely, will face problems when trying to escape from a deserted place.
What organizational conclusions can be drawn from this:
Small events for ten to fifteen people are better held in the city or, for example, at guarded recreation centers.
If you gather several dozen people, you can afford a tent camp, but then it is important to organize security yourselves. Sober and armed. Preferably with security credentials.
Local political paramilitaries, like the police, are tied to a specific territory. If you want a quiet, secluded vacation, go outside your region, and if you have federal notoriety, go abroad. Navalny was attacked when he flew from Moscow to vacation somewhere near Anapa, I believe. But if you have only caught the eye of the “E-center” in Krasnoyarsk, a trip to Tomsk will rid you of its attention.
VK is a terrible place for planning any kind of events. Total conspiracy is impossible, but increasing the cost of operational-search activities is within your power.
And generally, the idea of a camp is quite attractive…
