Рубрика: Messages

This is usually where I make requests and suggestions.

A few bits of channel news

Since 2018, a huge amount of text has accumulated on my website, and I suddenly felt the urge to translate this entire corpus of materials into English. You see, sometimes when chatting with an English speaker, I’d mention that I have a site with materials on ancap, they’d get curious and go to the address, only to find Cyrillic. And there wasn’t even a button to switch to English. It felt kind of silly. Well, now there is a button.

For this task, I mastered vibe-coding, built a WordPress plugin plus a set of Python utilities that connect to this plugin, and of course, API calls to an LLM—how could I do without them. It was terribly fascinating, and I even managed to limit myself exclusively to free tools. I’ll need a few more days to finish translating the very earliest posts and run a script to replace internal links in the translations from Russian to English. But, of course, this will be a purely neural-network translation, and native speakers might cringe at certain phrasings. On the other hand, if the English version of the site is presented not to Americans, but to say, Germans, there’s a chance they won’t notice anything at all. However, if any readers are willing and able to proofread not all posts in a row, but at least the most valuable ones, that would be wonderful. Once the English version of the site is finished, I will create a Serbian one in the same manner, and we’ll see where it goes from there.

Actually, I didn’t just dive into this activity for no reason; it’s because this autumn I am finally moving to Serbia. Montenegro is introducing visas for Russians, and all the ways to live in the country legally are becoming too expensive for me. Moreover, the government’s rhetoric leaves no doubt that they don’t plan to stop, and squeezing out foreigners before joining the EU is their conscious policy. So I see no reason to cling to this country until the end; I’d rather try to start from scratch in the neighboring one. And if Montenegro is Montelibero, then Serbia is Liberland. This means there will be a lot of communication with an English-speaking audience, which means a site translation is needed—that was roughly my train of thought.

That was the second piece of news, and the third is even more exciting. I’m planning to give birth around mid-April. And the fact that I won’t have to rely on the famous Montenegrin medicine already fills me with great joy, so everything is working out perfectly.

Due to the pregnancy, I am becoming less fit for physical work, so I’ve started looking for remote work. So far, I’ve laid out my “Libertarian Theory of War” for the Svoboda Publishing House; the client liked it and gave me a new book, which I’m currently working through, and we’ll see how long their queue of orders is. It’s unlikely this one side job will be enough to live on, but it’s a start. If you have any other interesting remote work options, please suggest them. But even if you don’t, you can simply donate to the development of the project, as you can see, it is indeed developing.

The crap that in the RF is delicately called an “internet accelerator”

Someone contacted me claiming to be developing their own VPN service and offered collaboration in the format of “here’s a referral link, maybe someone will buy a subscription, and you’ll get half of what they spend.” I don’t live in Russia and have no idea which services are considered decent or rubbish by local standards, so I cannot consciously recommend this product. I had thoughts about setting up some kind of VPN on my own VPS and offering it to the few remaining relatives and acquaintances in the RF, but it seems that today they are all universally far more competent in such matters than a sweet summer child like me, who has never known real censorship. So, I decided not to embarrass myself.

I asked if there was a way to verify whether the offered service actually doesn’t keep logs. I was told that a buyer of the service can see from the configs that the open-source xray core is being used. As the wise neural networks explained to me, this core is indeed open-source and indeed knows how not to write logs, but it also knows how to write them, and you certainly won’t see that from the client configs. The second question I was interested in was whether payment via more or less anonymous crypto was available. In response, I received a screenshot with a ton of payment methods; Monero, for example, was present. So, even if Comrade Major gains access to the non-existent logs, he won’t be able to link your traffic to personal data, but you’ll still have to mask your IP additionally.

I think there are currently more VPN service offers in the RF than there are cocaine offers in Montenegro, and anyone who wants can choose something from a very impressive list. I don’t think the service I was asked to promote stands out in any particular way—cocaine is cocaine, nothing extraordinary. If your current VPN subscription is expiring anyway, or if this one seems more convenient, or if you feel that sending me donations directly is too much of an honor but doing it via a referral link is fine—then welcome. Here is the link to the service website, and here is the link to the Telegram bot, if the privacy of the purchase doesn’t concern you particularly.

“Ancap” on “Svoboda”

My book “Ancap” has been published in print by Svoboda Publishing House and is available for purchase on Ozon. The first copies are sold at a discount; as of today, the price is less than 300 rubles (varying slightly depending on the payment method), and the sale will last for another 19 days, or until a Ukrainian drone hits the Ozon warehouse in the Moscow region, which serves as an additional incentive not to delay the purchase.

While you’re at it, stock up on other books from the same publisher

I suggest investing in Nostria

In brief

Sondre Bjellos, an activist in two communities, the Norwegian Liberstad and the Montenegrin Montelibero, with extensive experience in building decentralized systems, is launching a startup called Nostria. Until May 31, anyone interested can invest in it at the pre-seed stage on quite favorable terms. For participants of the Montelibero tokenomics, there is an opportunity to form an investor pool to gain greater control over the project.

Now in more detail

Nostr is a decentralized protocol for exchanging “notes and other things” via relays. I have been using it for quite a while now to publish my notes; I see great potential in it and am always glad when someone takes it upon themselves to develop it.

The idea of the Nostr protocol is that relays store their users’ content in JSON format and provide it to other relays upon request. Such content can also be a Bitcoin payment transaction via the Lightning protocol; thus, Bitcoin payments are natively integrated into Nostr, allowing for the decentralized provision of both content monetization and storage monetization (it is precisely in the area of monetization, for example, where the nearest analog to Nostr, the ActivityPub protocol, has its weak point).

The startup Nostria intends to:

  1. Develop its own client for the Nostr protocol
  2. Create a network of several relays in different parts of the world to ensure fast ping and wide bandwidth for its users (performance speed is the bane of decentralized systems)
  3. Promote, at the protocol level, the idea of specialized relays for storing only user metadata, which will offload large relays by distributing users more evenly across relays, and drastically speed up the collection of all messages related to a particular account and their delivery to clients.
  4. Monetize its service through premium services, offering users dedicated relays, a connection to a dedicated Lightning node, a human-readable name tied to a public key, media content storage, and other perks.
  5. Keep all code open on GitHub, as is proper for decentralized systems.

In this video, Sondre talks about his plans:

Those who prefer text over video can check out the pdf.

For now, Nostria’s medium-term goal is to catch up and surpass the struggling Bluesky. In the longer perspective, it should result in a decentralized solution that one wouldn’t be ashamed to migrate to from Telegram, once Durov finally declares that state security is incomparably more important than user convenience and security.

To launch the MVP, a pre-seed investment round is taking place until May 31. Putting it in plain language: Sondre wants to raise 30 thousand dollars by the end of May, and then spend ten thousand a month throughout the summer to bring the project into commercial operation. First month – hardware deployment. Second – software refinement. Third – marketing. In the autumn, when the project is ready to be shown to more serious investors, fundraising for global expansion will continue, and those who invested at the preliminary stage will have a preferential right to reinvest to maintain their share in the project, and their preliminary investments will be credited to the share capital with a coefficient of 1.15.

By default, investments are attracted in Bitcoin using the decentralized crowdfunding service Angor. Sondre has also released a separate video showing how the investing process works.

Important: the project founder can only unlock the collected funds after confirming the completion of the stated development stage. Until that moment, an investor can request their investment back at any time. All these features are implemented through the relatively simple smart contract mechanism that exists in Bitcoin and do not require the interference of a third trusted party.

However, the entry threshold for these investments is currently quite high: the minimum amount to receive any bonuses is 1000 dollars. Therefore, a solution suggests itself: participants of the Montelibero tokenomics can gather a pool of small investments and invest jointly as a large entity. I want to organize such a pool. My benefits: I will receive various non-monetary bonuses such as a premium account subscription. The benefits for co-investors, besides the financial return on investment: through me (or directly, if agreed upon), they will have convenient feedback with the developers, which means influence over the future functionality of both Nostria and, indirectly, the entire Nostr protocol.

Therefore, I have created a pristine Stellar account, issued the NostriaPre token on it, and created an order to sell it for EURMTL. You have until the end of May to buy this token; then I will also buy as much as possible, close the sell order, and transfer all collected EURMTL to Sondre. In the autumn, Sondre will set up an official Stellar account for his startup and create an order to sell official tokens for NostriaPre tokens at a rate of 1.15. When the startup begins to generate income from premium account services, the distributable profit for token holders will be accrued monthly proportional to the number of tokens.

To purchase the NostriaPre token, you must first open a trust line to it. Your Stellar wallet should have this capability. Token name: NostriaPre. Issuer’s public key: GABAZTSE4DOD4JKFPWQYK5QPUSW57QNZBJBREU2K2UFSGWPHBHNYF46A

This is, for example, how the trust line opening dialog looks in the Sunce
wallet.

Soon, the trust line will also be possible to open via a direct link.

I don’t want to overload the post with detailed instructions on using various types of Stellar wallets, as I assume the pool will be joined by those who already participate in the Montelibero tokenomics (an instruction is even posted on my website, but it is very outdated and I haven’t gotten around to updating it). But if you want to jump in from scratch in “Shut up and take my money” mode, please ask questions in the comments or via DM.

2024, results

The statistics bot sent over the usual postcard about how the channel is doing. It is evident that it has grown slightly, which is due to a couple of cross-promotion campaigns organized by the magazine Fronda, for which I am grateful. I write an author’s column in that magazine, and I hope that for some, this will be a reason to subscribe to it. Another ongoing collaboration this year is writing articles for thematic collections in the magazine “Yozh“.

This year, I completed two long-term projects: the translation of David Friedman’s book “Legal Systems Very Different from Our Own“, as well as Eric Mack’s “Libertarianism” (and also Balaji Srinivasan’s “The Network State“, which by my standards didn’t quite reach “long-term project” status, although the translation did drag on quite a bit). In 2025, I expect to finish the last long-term project — Stephan Mol liqueur’s “Practical Anarchy“, and I will think thrice before taking on anything new. I am writing my own book, “Libertarian Theory of War“, terribly slowly, and the finish line is not yet in sight.

My personal discovery of the year was the website “Anarchonomicon“, run by a Canadian catgirl, pagan, white racist, and connoisseur of violent methods of problem solving — everything we libertarians value and are inspired by. An indirect result of this was me creating a Substack account, although so far I only read there; I haven’t dared to write or comment yet.

In Montelibero, I help promote the ideas of decentralization by participating in the movement to attract P2P investments into local businesses, as well as in organizing Tikhiy Omut — a libertarian club owned by its members. My contribution to filling the decentralized directory https://monte.wiki/ and the decentralized social network BSN is still completely insufficient, but I hope to increase it over time. I am also slowly adding Montenegro to OSM maps.

I hope that this year I have been a good girl and deserve some gifts.

I congratulate all readers on a year in which there should clearly be a global turn toward greater freedom. Stay on trend, join promising endeavors, promote your own projects, grow wealthy, and assert yourselves. A successful ideology deserves successful carriers!

The channel is changing its format

First, I want to inform you that the epub of the Network State has been re-uploaded — there was a dynamic gif that e-readers didn’t recognize, so it had to be replaced with a static png.

Leaving my job finally happened, and now I want to devote more time to my channel. However, it turned out that in its current form, it burdens me more than anything, which is why posts appear rarely and without much enthusiasm. Therefore, the main thing I want to achieve now is to start enjoying it again. In this regard, I plan to run it differently. Instead of rare articles that barely fit into the format of a standard Telegram post, there will be frequent notes, usually without images — just certain thoughts that I want to share with readers. In the coming days, I will try to return to daily posts, just to establish the habit, and we’ll see where it goes from there.

I don’t intend to descend entirely into a blog format; I have Instagram for that. It is also possible that not every post will now be duplicated across all social networks, we’ll see.

Let me know in the comments which topics of notes would be most interesting to you.

Perhaps the channel is going on vacation

Another translation order has come in, and it’s also quite urgent. This means I may need to take a break from running the channel.

Therefore, for now, I can recommend listening to the podcasts on our Montelibero channel MTL-TV, especially, of course, the new “Ankaposhnaya” section; it’s not so much about Montelibero as it is about various libertarian theories—after all, that’s why you gathered here to read, isn’t it?

Montelibero is a decentralized community, which is why the channel has no single host; it is managed by whoever needs it most at the moment. First it was Soz, then Birkin, now it’s Ivan from the Ogurism channel, and later perhaps someone else will take over.

Also, to keep from getting too bored, you can boost the channel for now. Previously, this would only have given me the ability to post stories, but I find it barbaric to work on content that is destined to disappear quickly—such is my vain nature. But now, a well-boosted channel can also be styled more exquisitely, and it’s better to have that option than not to have it.

Court under ancap. Practice.

I have repeatedly had to answer questions about how courts would work under ancap, and we even once made a video on the subject. Nevertheless, questions continue to come in. This is understandable; the future is always in question. I believe the best way to resolve this issue is to demonstrate it in practice. Therefore, I am opening my own ancap court.

The main principles I intend to adhere to:

  1. The goal of the court is to resolve the conflict. Not to match a transgression with a registry of punishments, but to ensure that the decision helps the parties reconcile.
  2. All parties participate in the process voluntarily, agreeing in advance to execute the court’s decision.
  3. I reserve the right to refuse to conduct the proceedings and issue a decision at any moment, consequently refusing payment.
  4. The amount of my remuneration is announced in advance; the judicial process cannot begin before the parties agree to its payment.
  5. Judicial remuneration, deposits, and similar payments will be transferred to a separate Stellar account with a “2 out of 3” multi-signature. Thus, (a) parties will be able to withdraw their money in any proportion at any time by mutual agreement, thereby ending the court amicably; (b) I will be able to receive remuneration if at least one of the parties is satisfied with the decision; (c) the transfer of the claimed amount to the plaintiff or the return of the deposit to the defendant will not require the goodwill of the opposing party.
  6. If the parties agree for the process to be public, its progress will be covered by me in my channel.

I do not like it when those who call themselves libertarians simply mechanically replace the word “state” with the word “jurisdiction” and, in essence, try to simply cosplay the state. Jurisdiction is not a territory, not vassalage, and not an office with a sign. It is simply jurisdiction. For libertarians, it is voluntary jurisdiction that follows a request for help in resolving a conflict.

A court is far from the only tool for conflict resolution, and the need for it arises quite rarely. But, at the very least, I want to restore the good name of this institution, so that a court is not used as a threat, but that appealing to a court is perceived as appealing to a doctor or an accountant: yes, one can manage without it, but if the task is entrusted to someone with experience in it, the result will be faster and more reliable.

My main target audience is the participants of the Montellibero movement, but there are no problems with resolving conflicts among the external audience; they may simply need to put in effort to master the basics of tokenomics.

For now, I am accepting requests simply via Telegram DM (@ancapsan), but over time, I may add some additional interface.

Request for Support, Episode 2

Back in June 2022, I happened to address my readers with a request for support. I needed money to renew my residence permit and repair my scooter. Since then, the scooter has managed to die, but the need to legalize my stay in the country hasn’t gone anywhere. Only the basis for obtaining the residence permit has changed: previously it was my own shell company, now it is fictitious employment, as the costs of maintaining a company have risen sharply.

As last time, I plan to raise 500 euros. The buyout mechanism will differ slightly from last time. Now I am placing a sell order for 500 ANCAPCHAN tokens at a price of 1 EURMTL. On March 1, I will place a buy order at 1.01 (no less than 100 ANCAPCHAN), on April 1 at 1.02 (no less than 100 ANCAPCHAN), and on May 1 at 1.03 (no less than 300 ANCAPCHAN). In this way, I motivate myself to repay the debt as soon as possible. On June 1, I will decide that everyone who wanted to sell for a profit has had the chance to do so, and thereafter tokens will be bought at 1.

The main target audience for the loan is those who personally like me, as well as those who would like to commission me to write texts with payment in my own tokens: according to the established tradition in Montelibero, such clients always have priority, and a damn good reason is needed to refuse to fulfill their order.

In case any of the readers, for some strange reason, have not yet dealt with the tokenomics of Montelibero, I provide a link to my old instructions (they should be updated, but I haven’t gotten around to it; perhaps this update will be the first thing commissioned from me).

Once upon a time, this image was drawn for me specifically for posts expressing gratitude for money)))

2023, results

As usual, I note that I am unable to follow my own plans. Books I started translating earlier are still not finished, my own book on ancap has still not been recorded, but instead, I’ve started translating a new one about the Network State, and writing my own new one about libertarian theory of war.

The Telegram channel is not developing much: there are slightly more subscribers, slightly fewer publications and views, and citations have decreased slightly. Overall, this is logical: the project is mature, there is no aggressive advertising, free time is becoming scarcer; we simply continue to run the channel because how could we not?

Things are quite interesting with Montelibero. This year, the project continued to increase its systemic complexity, and now it can be confidently said: no single person knows how many people are in the movement or how the movement is doing as a whole, because one cannot embrace the infinite. Nor is there any need to. Therefore, certain major milestones are well-known to everyone (MTL-fest, moving into MTL-City), and alongside them are many small local achievements that look like breakthroughs to some and cause bewilderment to others. This is why I haven’t released Montelibero news for a long time; instead, I will most likely choose a segment that interests me and start covering it directly on the movement’s general channel.

In general, segmentation has become the main trend for Montelibero, and this is generally healthy: people try not to waste effort on things that interest them little and focus on what is important. At the same time, various companies interpenetrate somehow and are united only by these loose communications, similar value systems, and a set of approaches to working with reality. Such a Montelibero is not tied to any state borders at all, although, of course, most of the circles in the movement are geographically localized. I expect that next year this trend will become more institutionally shaped, the network nodes will take on a more explicit form, and their activities will receive diverse and more decentralized coverage.

Nothing interesting happened in Montenegro, except for a new government, a new president, the tightening of screws, and a census. In the RF, also nothing interesting, except for a failed coup. On the other hand, Argentina unexpectedly appeared on the scene. Now one can observe with joyful curiosity how etatists are fought with etatist methods, and add individual cases to the collection.

In the New Year, I want to wish my readers two of the most important things: a sense of self-worth and purposefulness. Do not tolerate shit neither in yourself nor around you, and move consistently toward a world where there is less of it.