Тег: Elections

Open voting against the tyranny of the majority

Friends-libertarians, let’s talk straight: secret voting is not a protection of freedom, but a perfectly cozy smokescreen for those who want to push their desires onto others’ accounts under the radar. And if you’ve decided to push new taxes, bans, and other “gifts” to society through a ballot, be so kind as to not hide behind anonymity and answer for it fully.

Imagine a world where voting stops being secret. Want to push a law about raising your neighbor’s taxes through a ballot – go ahead, but be prepared for a retaliatory reaction from them that could end badly for you. Yes, yes, it sounds scary, but it’s honest. Because a ballot isn’t an innocent little piece of paper; it’s a weapon with which the state applies violence to those who disagree with your opinion. Anyone willing to defend their position must be ready for reputational costs as well. You vote for tightening screws – please, everyone knows who the author of these new chains is. Neighbors turn away, friends stop inviting you for beer, colleagues give you a sidelong glance in the office – that’s justice!

By the way, lovers of mandatory AML/KYC when buying crypto – here’s an argument worth a million: if you think it’s normal to reveal your identity with every transaction on a couple of hundred bucks, why shouldn’t elections – a much more dangerous affair capable of leading to openly tyrannical power – be anonymous? A tyrant on the throne is far more dangerous than a couple of guys swapping Bitcoin for USDT without a passport. Seriously, has anyone heard of genocide orchestrated by the “shadow economy”? But there are whole volumes of stories about it from states around the world!

Someone might say: “What if my employer threatens to fire me?” Well, if it’s just one employer, then there’s still an opportunity to think: “Maybe I should drop it?” But if the risk is that people will turn away from you and even start to take revenge through your entire circle, he’d rather not make any political choice at all and not vote. And that’s fantastic! Why? Because fewer voters mean less legitimacy for power. Power nobody elected looks pathetic and helpless, and it’s harder for it to restrict our freedoms with more idiotic laws. The fewer people who vote, the looser the hands of power. That’s exactly what libertarians are aiming for!

Some people are racking their brains over another question: how does Sweden, a country with such astronomical taxes, manage to remain almost an example of personal freedom? And the trick is simple, though unexpected – “partially open” voting, which existed in Sweden for as long as 2019. Imagine the picture: you come to the polling station, and there are stacks of ballots lying right in front of everyone. You take a leaf from moderate parties – and the whole city already knows your preferences. Did you decide to boldly reach out for a leaflet from ultra-left or ultra-right groups? Be prepared to catch sideways glances from the entire queue. As a result, “local Tramps” or “Orban’s” did not take root in Sweden. Freedom is so abundant there that it’s enough even in personal life, despite high taxes in the economy.

It turns out to be an interesting thing: openness of choice with clear reputational consequences – this is like a good brake on a slippery road. It keeps the entire system from radical skidding into authoritarianism! And therefore open voting is not a step back, but a giant leap towards freedom. Whoever is afraid of openness should sit at home and wave a ballot paper like a whip over others. But whoever is ready to openly support some positions, especially those encroaching on the freedoms of their neighbors, they should, as an adult, bear responsibility for their choice. Otherwise, he has nothing to do with voting and should occupy himself with something more useful!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Optimal tactics for the Russian opposition during the upcoming elections

Elections are coming soon in Russia. Last time, voting at polling stations lasted for three whole days, and I hope this practice continues now. The FBK, as usual, is calling for smart voting, and of course, the Russian opposition (those who haven’t left yet) should publicly support this initiative. Be sure to post on social media that it is now more important than ever to act within the legal framework, support democratic institutions, and so on and so forth. And even go and vote for someone; it might prove useful.

The most important thing for the Russian opposition in the coming voting days is that a vast number of polling stations are open across the country, and at each one, there is one or even two cops on duty. This, in turn, means a sharp increase in the police response time to various truly important political actions, such as burning down certain government institutions—like the already familiar military recruitment offices—or even something more tasty. It would be a sin not to take advantage of this!

Remember: the only thing that justifies a Russian oppositionist remaining in Russia right now is participation in sabotage, diversions, and terrorist attacks. Your sitting in prison weakens the regime far less, and participating in some pickets actually strengthens it, because you will inevitably pay the regime a hefty fine afterwards. So, for those of you remaining behind enemy lines, it is far more useful to promote some theory of small deeds, write that the special operation is “not that straightforward,” and generally behave in a moderately unacceptable manner—while steadily unscrewing the nuts from the rails.

Firstly, it’s beautiful…

Elections, elections!

I have finally received the recommendations from the State Department Smart Voting regarding which specific single-mandate candidate I should vote for in District 96 in the north of the Irkutsk region: that is where our little warm western Montenegro is located. It turned out to be a certain Andreev Andrey Anatolyevich, from the CPRF. For Navalny’s pawns, this information is quite sufficient, but those who enjoy thoughtfully analyzing the varieties of shit can visit the shit directory kindly created by Khodorkovsky and check the details of all candidates there.

As for the voting by party lists, I intend to balance my vote for the communist single-mandate candidate by voting for the LDPR list—especially since, as far as I can tell, Smart Voting mainly recommends communists for the single-mandate districts, and I don’t really want to give them an overly populous faction.

One should not take elections in modern Russia with animal seriousness; it is nothing more than a way to piss in their slippers. It won’t make them feed us better or bully us less, but we know that when we piss in their slippers, it infuriates them. Is that not enough?

Observation Project GrOb

The “Civil Society” movement, led by Mikhail Svetov, announced an ambitious project to organize exit polls in 13 regions and observation in 123 municipalities.

I have no idea where the movement will get so many volunteers to fulfill its obligations, and I suspect that it will be limited to partial coverage of Moscow. Again, organizing an exit poll is relatively simple: you put a couple of people with tablets at the exit of a few polling stations—and there is your exit poll. To organize observation, you need not only to find volunteers but also to reach an agreement with various candidates and electoral associations so that they issue referrals to these volunteers.

As it happened, I was recently convinced to work as a volunteer for the Novosibirsk-2020 coalition, which nominated more than three dozen single-mandate candidates for the city council of deputies. If I learn that representatives of Civil Society are contacting the coalition headquarters and offering their people for observation, I will certainly report it, but so far I have heard nothing of any such activity.

I looked at the website through which Civil Society attracts people to participate in its project. The text boils down to this: here are the contacts where you can leave a request for observation, and here are the details through which you can support us with money. How many people they plan to attract, how many have already been attracted, how much money is needed, and how much has already been collected—none of this is on the website.

Another funny point. Throughout the text, it is stated that the project is being done by Civil Society, but the logo of the Libertarian Party is also present. What the party’s role is in this endeavor is completely unclear from the text.

But I wouldn’t want this post to look like an indiscriminate bashing of a good initiative. There is one nice feature on the website: if you scroll down and select your city, a map of that city will load, and all the polling stations are marked on it. Even if the organizers completely fuck up everything, the map of polling stations is already useful now. I hope that over time the functionality of the site will develop further. For example, it would be visible which polling stations have already had at least someone apply. Then it would at least be possible to assess the scale of the work done.

If you vote, be responsible!

Perhaps you have read the latest book by the famous philosopher Nassim Taleb, “Skin in the Game“. If not, let me remind you of its main idea: in order for a person to have the motivation to carefully consider their action and its consequences before acting, they must not only benefit from the action but also risk something valuable (be prepared to face negative consequences).

The most famous example is the difference between a business owner and a hired manager. If the owner makes an important decision, they can either make a good profit or bankrupt the company, leaving themselves without means of subsistence. A manager is a completely different story: if they make a profitable decision, they will receive a substantial reward from the owner, but if they make a mistake, the company will go bankrupt, while they personally will lose, at most, their job and will most likely quickly find employment at a new company. Understanding this asymmetry of risks, business owners often offer managers stock options so that they are more invested in the fate of the company, “risking their own skin” by losing money if they screw up.

The same idea from Taleb’s book applies to politics. Every time you vote in elections or referendums, you are exercising violent coercion against all peaceful people in society while risking nothing. Suppose you believe that casinos should be banned in the country. If you were acting independently, you would have to go to every casino in the country and force their owners to close. Obviously, you wouldn’t do that—the very first casino owner you approached would simply shoot you. But it is a completely different matter when you, like some vile, cold-blooded pedophile, take advantage of the uneven balance of the potential for violence (BPV) between a casino owner and a stationary bandit (the state). You anonymously vote in a referendum to ban all casinos, pay a vanishingly small portion of your own income in the form of taxes (the enforcement of a specific ban that benefits you personally costs 0.01% of the total taxes you pay), and meanwhile risk nothing personally (you don’t have to go to each casino owner personally and risk being killed; the security forces will do it for you).

It is clear that such behavior leads to the degeneration of society. It is like giving maniacs free rein to rape children without risking meeting resistance. This must not continue… and it won’t! Participating in voting is not like receiving a billion bucks in your bank account; it is just a small moral satisfaction from the possibility of trying to coerce your neighbor for free. Since the satisfaction is small, the negative stimulus needed to deter participation in voting needs only to be tiny.

A fairly simple scheme emerges for how to raise the costs of complicity in initiating violence against one’s neighbor by participating in some vote. Did you find out that Vasyan from the next entrance voted for “United Russia” in yesterday’s elections? Pay 100 rubles to local hooligans and they will write “A maniac lives here” on his apartment door or post a flyer with his photo in the entrance saying “This person from your building rapes children.” The photos end up on social networks, and in the next elections, members of the election commissions sit in proud solitude. Coercing one’s neighbor has become “too expensive,” so one has to learn how to negotiate with them.

For the mass application of the described scheme, it is possible to create a crowdfunding service analogous to the previously described service for the deanonymization of officials and security forces. Harassing Vasyans will be a thousand times cheaper than harassing a well-guarded official, so one can count on mass appeal.

Bitarch

On Participation in Elections – 2

About a year ago, I wrote a post “On Participating in Elections”, where I gave my interpretation of why ancaps need it at all. Recently, a snide comment appeared under the post, suggesting that people will come up with anything just to convince voters to give up on boycotting. I replied to the comment, but perhaps these considerations should be put into a separate post.

Election boycotting is a tactic that leads to victory in only one case: if voters, by not showing up at polling stations, form their own self-governing bodies without the state’s participation and voluntarily use them, ignoring those created in state-organized elections. In other words, one should boycott not only the elections, but the state as such.

In principle, my argument that going to a polling station to vote or observe is simply practice can be flipped in favor of boycotting elections—that it is simply practice in boycotting the state. I agree, but it is one thing to practice a plank, and quite another to practice simply lying on the couch; nothing will come of that except bedsores. A boycott is an active refusal to cooperate, so if you want, you can practice specifically this skill; it is also very useful. In this case, you will need not just to skip the elections, but to convince as many people as possible to skip them, so that the preaching of non-participation in this shit is heard from everywhere. And then, not limiting yourself to elections, begin to boycott legislation on mass rallies, the tax code, the law on personal data, and many other harmful state regulations. Do not inform the state about your actions, because it’s a boycott—there is no state for you. Treat state employees as ordinary people, and if they use violence, as ordinary gangsters.

In short, a boycott is a very difficult and responsible path, and boycotting elections is only the beginning. If you are not ready for it yet, or consider it hopeless, then it is better to practice the skills of democratic decision-making. Again, a year ago, when I suggested you engage in this, the exercise was simple. Now, the proposal is to master something more complex—not just to simulate filling out a ballot, dropping it in the box, and counting votes, but additionally, to do this in a consolidated manner, within the framework of smart voting. If anyone hasn’t registered to participate in this flashmob yet—I highly recommend it, because ancap is not about aggressive individualism where you don’t give a damn about anything except your immediate desires. Ancap is about living in a society without coercion, based on voluntary cooperation. Smart voting is the opposition of that very voluntary cooperation to the administrative resource, so it’s high time to show whose kung fu is stronger.

Who will you bet on: the balding old man, or the guy whose hand Svetov himself shook?