Cybernethics / Cybernéthique

Cô, Cậu và Cái Mũ Hàn

fare — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 13:15:09 GMT

[Trong một xưởng hàn nhỏ. Ở giữa phòng có một bàn thao tác, trên đó là một khung cầu nhỏ bằng thép. Trên giá cạnh bàn treo một mũ hàn và một mỏ hàn. Máy mài đã tắt, nhưng quạt hút bụi vẫn chạy ầm ầm. Bảo mặc áo bảo hộ rộng, đội mũ, đeo kính và khẩu trang lọc bụi, nên giọng nói nghẹt qua lớp khẩu trang. An bước vào, cũng mặc áo bảo hộ đơn giản, kính bảo hộ treo ở cổ, tay cầm hộp dụng cụ và một tập giấy.]

An: Xin lỗi, đây là lớp hàn nhập môn đúng không?

Bảo: Đúng. Tên. Ký bên kia. Kính lên mắt trước khi vào khu bàn thao tác.

An: Tôi không phải học viên. Tôi là An, trợ giảng mới.

Bảo: Trợ giảng thì càng phải đứng ngoài vạch an toàn đã.

An: Vâng. Còn ông bạn phụ trách phần này à?

Bảo: “Ông bạn”?

An: Ờ... áo bảo hộ, mũ, kính, khẩu trang, lại đang cúi bên bàn hàn. Tôi đoán hơi nhanh.

Bảo: Quy tắc an toàn số không: đừng đoán giới tính qua đồ bảo hộ.

An: Vậy thầy hướng dẫn chưa tới à?

[Bảo đặt bàn chải thép xuống khay, bước ra ngoài vạch vàng cạnh bàn đăng ký. Kính bảo hộ vẫn trên mắt; Bảo chỉ kéo khẩu trang xuống.]

Bảo: Thầy thì không. Cô thì đang đứng đây.

An: ...Cô?

Bảo: Trong lớp thì cô Bảo. Ngoài lớp thì Bảo. Còn “ông bạn” thì để tôi xem xét.

An: Em xin lỗi cô giáo.

Bảo: Khoan. Anh là trợ giảng, không phải học viên. Đừng xin lỗi như vừa trượt bài an toàn.

An: Vậy tôi xin lỗi chị?

Bảo: Chưa biết. Nhưng nếu anh là trợ giảng của tôi thì trong xưởng gọi ngắn gọn là sếp cũng được.

An: Vâng, sếp. Tôi đang mất địa vị rất nhanh.

An: Vậy cái khung cầu kia là bài tập đầu tiên à?

Bảo: Không. Bài đầu tiên là không tự đốt mình. Cái kia là giáo cụ trực quan.

An: Trông giống cầu tre môn thủ công hồi tiểu học.

Bảo: Tiểu học Nguyễn Du?

An: ...Sao biết?

Bảo: Lớp Ba. Cả lớp làm cầu bằng que tre. Có một cái mái giấy màu xanh.

An: Cái đẹp nhất lớp.

Bảo: Của tôi.

An: ...

Bảo: Rồi đến giờ uống sữa. Hộp sữa đậu nành của tôi để cạnh cầu. Có một người chạy qua, cầm lọ hồ dán, miệng thì nói “để tớ giúp.”

An: Tay tớ quệt vào hộp sữa.

Bảo: Cầu chết đuối. Sữa cũng chết theo.

An: Bảo cầu tre?

Bảo: An sữa đậu nành?

An: Tớ xin lỗi cậu. Muộn hơi lâu.

Bảo: Mười mấy năm không phải “hơi.”

An: Tớ không cố ý.

Bảo: Tao nhớ. Mày tưởng tao quên à?

An: Ồ. Đã tới tao-mày rồi à?

Bảo: Xin lỗi. Tớ không nên dùng tao-mày trong môi trường giáo dục.

An: Tôi cũng xin lỗi vì “ông bạn.”

Bảo: Ghi vào bảng lỗi: một, đoán giới tính qua áo bảo hộ; hai, chê giáo cụ trực quan; ba, nợ tôi một cây cầu và một hộp sữa đậu nành.

An: Tôi mới vào lớp năm phút.

Bảo: Vậy là tiến độ tốt.

[Hai điện thoại rung gần như cùng lúc.]

An: Bố tôi nhắn.

Bảo: Mẹ tôi cũng nhắn.

An: “Bố với cô Mai mới cưới. Tối nay nhớ qua ăn cơm. Gặp con gái cô ấy, Bảo. Con bé chắc trạc tuổi con.”

Bảo: “Mẹ với chú Dũng mới cưới. Tối nay về sớm. Gặp con trai chú ấy, An. Cậu ấy cũng thích hàn.”

An: “Cậu ấy cũng thích hàn”?

Bảo: Chú Dũng là bố anh?

An: Cô Mai là mẹ Bảo?

Bảo: Vậy bố anh mới cưới mẹ tôi.

An: Và chúng ta phát hiện chuyện này trong xưởng hàn.

Bảo: Khoan. “Con bé”?

An: Nguyên văn của bố tôi. Anh không gọi cô giáo-sếp là con bé.

Bảo: Tốt. Vậy ở nhà gọi nhau thế nào?

An: Tôi sinh tháng Năm.

Bảo: Em tháng Bảy.

An: Vậy anh là anh.

Bảo: Về tuổi thì anh là anh. Về xưởng thì em là sếp.

An: Vậy anh nên phản đối bằng vai anh trai, hay nhận lệnh bằng vai trợ giảng?

Bảo: Nhận lệnh trước. Phản đối để sau.

[Hai người vừa nhìn nhau thì điện thoại của An lại rung: một tin nhắn từ “Bà nội”.]

An: Bà nội tôi nhắn.

Bảo: Có nên sợ không?

An: “Không chỉ vì bố con cưới cô Mai đâu. Bên nội nhà mình cũng có họ với ba của Bảo: ba của Bảo là em út của ông nội con. Bảo là cô họ của con. Đừng hỗn.”

Bảo: Tôi vừa từ em gái kế lên cô họ trong một tin nhắn.

An: Vâng, cô.

Bảo: Cùng một chữ với cô giáo. Tiện thật.

An: Không tiện cho cháu.

Bảo: Khoan. Đừng xin lỗi nhanh quá. Điện thoại tôi cũng vừa rung.

[Điện thoại của Bảo rung: một tin nhắn từ “Bà ngoại”.]

Bảo: Bà ngoại tôi nhắn.

An: Tôi cần ngồi xuống không?

Bảo: Trong xưởng không ai ngồi cạnh bình khí.

An: Vậy đọc đi.

Bảo: “Không chỉ vì mẹ con cưới chú Dũng đâu. Bên ngoại nhà mình cũng có họ với mẹ của An: mẹ của An là em họ xa bên ngoại của ông ngoại con. An là cậu họ của con. Đừng hỗn.”

An: Tôi vừa từ trợ giảng lên cậu họ. Ít nhất hôm nay cũng có thăng chức.

Bảo: Vậy trong xưởng cháu là sếp của cậu?

An: Câu đó làm anh muốn đội lại mũ hàn.

Bảo: Vậy từ giờ em gọi anh là cậu?

An: Cậu kiểu lớp Ba hay cậu họ?

Bảo: Cả hai. Cậu đang bị quản chế.

An: Đừng mở thêm nhánh pháp lý nữa.

Bảo: Hai bà cùng nhắn “đừng hỗn.”

An: Vì hai bà biết chúng ta.

Bảo: Nhắc trước, quý trợ giảng: “hai bà” không cho phép tự ý thêm bà thứ ba.

An: Ghi nhận. Không tự ý thêm bà.

An: Khoan. Tôi đề nghị lập biên bản xưng hô.

Bảo: Biên bản gì?

An: Trong xưởng: cô thắng. Ở nhà: anh hơn tuổi, nhưng em thắng bằng quyền em út. Bên nội anh: cô thắng. Bên ngoại em: cậu thắng.

Bảo: Anh muốn dán sơ đồ gia phả cạnh bảng an toàn lao động?

An: Có. Mục một: không nhìn thẳng vào tia hàn. Mục hai: không gọi nhầm cô giáo là ông bạn. Mục ba: không cãi hai bà cùng lúc.

Bảo: Khá hơn rồi. Có bản năng sinh tồn.

An: Vậy tóm tắt nhé: em là sếp của anh, cô của cháu, cháu của cậu, và nạn nhân cầu tre của tớ.

Bảo: Đúng.

An: Còn anh là trợ giảng của cô, anh của em, cậu của cháu, và bị cáo trong vụ sữa đậu nành.

Bảo: Rất đúng.

An: Tức là mỗi lần anh có quyền, em tìm được một nhánh khác để tịch thu.

Bảo: Cuối cùng anh hiểu bài.

An: Nhân tiện: anh xin lỗi riêng vụ “ông bạn.” Anh rút vĩnh viễn.

Bảo: Muộn rồi. Đã vào bảng lỗi.

An: Tôi xin lỗi Bảo vì không nhận ra Bảo lớp Ba, vì làm đổ sữa đậu nành, và vì chưa biết phải chào Bảo theo nhánh nào.

Bảo: Bảo xin lỗi An vì tưởng An là học viên, vì gọi An là An sữa đậu nành trước giờ học, vì dùng tao-mày trong môi trường giáo dục, và vì sắp bắt An đẩy xe bình khí.

An: “Sắp”?

Bảo: Ừ. Sếp phân công.

[Bảo đưa cho An một đôi găng tay dày.]

An: Gia phả này nặng thật.

Bảo: Đó là bình khí. Dùng xe đẩy, đừng khiêng.

An: Anh biết. Anh đang nói cả hai.

Bảo: Đi đi, cậu.

An: Dạ, cô.

Bảo: Chào mừng anh trở lại lớp Ba. Lần này có mỏ hàn.

Ode à Cassandre

fare — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 16:19:17 GMT

Cette fois, ce ne fut pas La Fontaine, mais Ronsard que je mis en musique. Pourquoi l'Ode à Cassandre m'occupa-t-il l'esprit tandis que je m'asseyais devant le piano de ma sœur? Peut-être indirectement via une suggestion en-ligne de mon oncle? Toujours était-il que c'était un des rares poèmes que je connaissais presque par cœur, même si je me demande parfois ce est arrivé à ces beautés, les séchoirs. Bref, maintenant je connais la mignonne vraiment par cœur, avec, pour ne plus l'oublier, une mélodie qui mélodie suit le texte, à sussurer, sur un rythme à la manière d'une élocution affectée. Et en attendant un enregistrement, voici la partoche.

Imprimer la partition (PDF)

Éditer la partition (Lilypond)

The Missing Political Ideology of Open Borders

fare — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 04:04:59 GMT

I fully agree with Bryan Caplan in favor of Open Borders as an economic, moral or legal issue. But there remains the political issue.

The real problem with mass immigration is that of birth citizenship. Immigrants don't just partake in the economy, they change the polity. And not only will the current prevailing ideology not allow a permanent second class of hereditary metics—such a situation isn't stable, and leads to revolutions.

The descendants of immigrants organized as the Roman Plebs, whose activity made descendants of the original settlers rich Patricians. But eventually they demanded more political rights, which led to repression, civil wars, and the eventual fall of the Republic.

A world where citizenship is decoupled from either heredity or geography would be very different from what we have today. The prevailing ideologies would have to be very different—and probably the military technologies, too. Military technology has so far always favored large territories with relatively thin borders, though not so large that political coordination becomes harder than political enforcement. How do you deal with mass conflicts in a world of Open Borders?

Think of it: there will always be people with mortally incompatible values. Muslims and Jews. Collectivists and Individualists. etc. Integration requires a strong authority above—or else you soon enough have a civil war between neighbors. Segregation soon leads to territorial polities again, the rivalry between which will soon enough lead to warring countries settling borders based on the outcome of military engagements.

Also, if you want a world where people can freely cross borders—remember that it goes both ways. It should allow not just barbarians flocking to seek a better life among more civilized people, but also more civilized people crossing into territories currently dominated by barbarian thugs, topple the thugs in power, and settle peacefully, which entails imposing their civilized order over the barbarians who would disturb it.

In any case, the first and most difficult step to achieve Open Borders is ideological—finding and spreading an ideology that enables peaceful coexistence, including the identification and repression of those who would destroy the peace. An ideology strong enough to replace the Westphalian Nation States. Strong with deadly weapons. And ideology that can acknowledge differences between peoples without explaining any and all differences as oppression and turning them into conflicts. An ideology where accepting new neighbors, or your neighbors having more children, does not grant them increased political power over you and your children. The ideology of Property Rights.

I have argued before that in a world where Naturally and Artificially Intelligent agents with wildly and widely different capabilities exist, a winner-takes-all political ideology, whether "democratic" or not, will necessarily lead to an all-out-war with much discrimination, repression, revolution, and even genocide, every time new peoples or new kinds of AIs come into contact. But the root problem is not the new peoples (via immigration) or new kinds of AIs (via innovation). It is the political ideology. "Democracy" will lead you to genocide, again. Only Property Rights can save you.

“All honest people are welcome to live here, or anywhere. All dishonest people are welcome to die here, or anywhere.” — Libertarian Open-Borders, Open-Hunt Policy

Of Germany and Palestine

fare — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 01:25:47 GMT

Many present post-WWII Germany as a “model” for Palestine, explaining how the Allies rebuilt Germany and were otherwise so nice to Germans, after which Germans became “democratic”, and friends and faithful allies of their new victors.

That is a very selective reading of Propaganda as History to say the least. Might Germany be a model for Palestine? Maybe, but not in the naive way suggested by the ignoramus who repeat allied propaganda.

Sure, after the quick suppression of the quite limited Nazi “Werwolf” resistance, the only terrorism seen in Germany for many decades, beside that of the allied-imposed States, was the terrorism funded by the KGB—though nowadays Communists have been replaced by Islamists. Not that violent terrorism is the most efficient way to destroy a country: communist propaganda, under its “ecological” front, certainly did more to sabotage the German industry, by depriving it of nuclear energy, than did any bomb; the utter demoralization of the German population is visible in how the only colors that emerge from the everyday drab are those of punks and postmoderns; finally, the allied-imposed “multiculti” ideology and mass immigration by Russians in the East and Turks in the West has destroyed any alleged “purity” of the German Race more surely than the systematic rape of German women by allied soldiers.

For indeed, allied troops systematically raped every single German woman of rapable age (and then some). “Copulation without conversation isn’t fraternization” was the motto of US GIs. I don’t know what was the Russian slogan, but even after the initial invasion, I know that first-wave Russian occupation soldiers who took German girlfriends or wives instead of raping women as mandated were put in special wagons on their trains back to Russia, and were never seen alive again (my friend Marina’s father, whom I met on his death bed, was the KGB agent in charge of making the list of these soldiers and putting them in the separate wagons).

Also, a sizable proportion of German prisoners of war were starved to death by the Allies. In staggering numbers by the Russian, and still appalling numbers by the Anglo-American. Those numbers would count as “genocide” by today’s lowered standards, though these standards admittedly debase the word. Either way, they would definitely qualify as Crimes against Humanity.

Then again, let’s not forget the annexation and ethnic cleansing by its neighbors of big chunks of generational German territory, with forced displacement of millions, and de-germanization of any who remained. That would also be considered “illegal” nowadays.

Finally, and perhaps more importantly, the Allies cleansed German institutions of any trace Nazism, “lustrating” most Nazi officials, though coopting many they deemed useful in their programs for weapons of mass murder or apparatuses of mass surveillance. The population was for decades subject to massive brainwashing by the occupants’ ideology, at schools, in the newspapers and on television, to the point that decades later, sensitive young innocent girls would still commit suicide over unearned collective “guilt” for crimes their had been too young or unborn to commit (a German comrade of my mother thus hung herself). And it is only today, eighty years later, that some Germans dare openly claim pride in being German, though not without causing a massive uproar as they do.

Now let’s talk about how after WWII, the allies “rebuilt” Germany to their image: in the West, a somewhat capitalist system, though under military rule for many years; and in the East, a communist totalitarian hell-hole, where much of the Gestapo infrastructure was seamlessly recycled into the Stasi. Even in the West, the US military occupants were imposing national socialism, just with German shame replacing German pride. Price controls were ubiquitous, at least where all the essential goods are concerned. Ludwig Erhard famously enabled the free market revival of West Germany by undercutting the occupation authorities: the occupants claimed there could be no change in price-control prices without their approval, leading to constant shortages and resource misallocation; instead Erhard wholly abolished the controls, which the occupation rules assumed existed but failed to formally mandate.

Yet despite all of this the German spirit endures, for good and ill. A people raised to live by the rules, to have excellent practical skills as well as sound theory. Also a people quite bureaucratic, though with a bureaucracy more efficient and honest than in most any other country. A people demoralized in many ways, yet still proud and resilient in other ways. Indeed a people that has largely renounced violence—to the point of not being able to defend itself, against threats either external (Russian menace) or internal (violence by new migrants). But a people that is one of the most prosperous on Earth, and a people that still has a future.

Did the Germans deserve to be treated that way? Well, I don’t believe in the morality of collective punishments; but I can certainly notice their reality, and understand the causes that lead to such consequences. Let’s put aside the too many actual Nazis who ran the regime or did its dirty work, mass murdering millions and oppressing an entire continent. They certainly deserved what befell them, and more punishment yet that too many escaped. Yet even they were but a minority of the population, though they may have had the approval of a plurality, maybe even a majority at a time. Most Germans were honest citizens who never committed a crime, whatever they may have known and approved, or not known or not approved, of those crimes. Thought itself is not a crime, however dark. Many may have supported the Nazis only in a desperate bid to escape the misery and horrors of the Weimar Republic without falling into wholesale Bolshevism; they may even have recognized the Evil of the Nazis, yet not bothered or dared or known how to oppose it until it grew too strong. While a few ran away, most didn’t (and probably couldn’t), probably just hoping the Nazis would either somehow succeed, or else more likely be replaced peacefully after a few years. Passivity, whether approving or dis-, is certainly not a crime. But it was certainly a huge deadly mistake for millions of Germans who suffered the consequences. Some hypothetical moral God of the Afterlife may or may not convict those Germans; meanwhile the actual amoral God of Life has rendered his cruel verdict. Deserve or not according to some imaginary cosmic justice, they brought some actual consequences upon themselves in the real world—and maybe that’s the only “deserve” that matters in practice.

[Note the important difference between these two notions of “deserve”, and how it is at the very heart of those genocidal conflicts: by tagging an entire people as collectively “guilty”, WWI allies crushed the Germans into desperation and led to the rise of the Nazis; Russian communists massacred entire families and repressed entire ethnic groups based on collective guilt; German National Socialists targeted Jews as scapegoats vowed to genocide; Arab National Socialists made the same vow, though with their own religious agenda; and Israeli Jews will oppress Arabs collectively in return. Cosmic collective “guilt” justifying collective comeuppance is the root justification of all genocides, pogroms, and other forms of large-scale oppression. Meanwhile, the realization of practical causes and consequences of individual actions and emergent group behaviors as such implies no value judgment, and neither justifies nor condemns any specific reaction to them. Analysis in a value-neutral way is not only possible, but necessary before any subsequent value judgment is itself possible, that itself will be necessary to guide action. And by embracing individual guilt and innocence, individual responsibility for one’s actions and one’s outcomes, we can indeed guide individual action towards better outcomes with better emergent collective behavior, that among other things can avoid mass murder—a very low bar that collectivist philosophies sadly yet obviously fail to pass.]

And so, is the German model a solution for Palestine?

The fate of Germany post-WWII under the boot of its victors was far more violent, cruel and degrading than today’s Official History (a.k.a. Propaganda) will admit. Yet military might is a blunt tool, and its application by 1945 victors should be compared to other violent conquests of times past, not to a fallacious imaginary Nirvana. As bad as the Germans had it, the majority survived, quickly enough recovered, and now live in peace and in prosperity. This is a vastly superior fate to that of the poor Palestinian Arabs, upon whom Eternal War was foisted by their Israeli Enemy and its Western sponsors, as well as by their Arab “allies” and their Russian or Iranian sponsors, not to mention the deleterious influence of the UN. Rape, massacre and brainwashing are quite bad, but only last a moment that dwindles in the past until it is but a distant memory. Eternal War is an ever renewed evil that never ceases.

Do I support Palestine getting the German treatment? Certainly not, as it violates my sense of morality based on radical individualism. As my preferred solution, I could go at length about how a decentralized order without a monopoly of violence could bring lasting peace and justice, despite even enduring racial and religious hatred and indeed irreducibly genocidal elements on either or both sides. Don’t expect it to magically turn positive the vastly negative sum of previously played games; yet it can guarantee positive sum games for the future. But that is not on the table, so I’ll reserve this rant for another day. To come back to what’s on the table, then, what do I think about giving Palestinians the same treatment that the Germans received? Well, I think it would have been and still would be preferable, and vastly so, to what the Palestinians have been having since about the very same time as the Germans, both in the 1940s! If Palestinians had suffered what the Germans did, it would certainly suck for them, but just compare the outcome for Germany and for Palestine, eighty years later. It is night and day. Maybe it is too late for Palestinian Arabs today, but for the sake of their great grand children, maybe it’s time to start the systematic rapes, starvation-based mass murder, strict military occupation, and brainwashing education. (And in this day and age, we can probably even skip the raping and starving.)

Do the Palestinians deserve such a treatment though? Yes, they deserve it, emphatically, and in droves—no more and no less than the Germans did: an active minority of genocidal terrorists controls the population, the schools, and mass media, and the rest of the population is brainwashed into approving, the few open dissenters soon meeting a grim fate. Despite all the uniquely evil influence the Palestinians have undergone from their own leaders, other Arab countries, from Muslim organizations, from Communist then Putinist Russia, from Islamic Iran, from the cartel of dictators known as the UN, etc., all pushing an ideology of Eternal War upon them, in the end, Palestinians are each responsible for their own ideology, for their own actions that ensue, and for the retribution they get as necessary consequences. To deny it is to claim that Palestinians have no agency and are not even human beings (at which point, it’s OK to treat them as such). Most Palestinians chose an Eternal War they eternally lose. Some didn’t, and left, sometimes at the risk of their life, like famously Waleed al-Husseini or Mosab Hassan Yousef—or openly opposed the regime and were murdered, their names slandered then forgotten. Those who persevered in actively adopting their ideology of (self-)destruction, or stayed in passive acceptance of this deadly ideology dominating their community, deserve the bitter fruit of their choice, to the very end—not in terms of meaningless cosmic justice, but in terms of real-world consequences. And sure, the blunt tool of war isn’t precise in punishing the culprits and sparing the innocents; yet they brought that tool upon themselves. I wish for more individualistic methods and outcomes, but I know no tool to bring about these outcomes today or in the foreseeable future—beside explaining the reality of the situation as I am now doing.

What then can Palestinians do, individually as well as collectively? First and foremost, reject their ideology of Eternal War, with its deadly mix of Nationalism, Socialism and Islamism. Stop living in hate and teaching hate to their kids. Instead, Love Thy Enemy—then stop being enemies at all. Count their losses. Live in the future, rather than Die for the past. Celebrate the dissidents who courageously rejected the official ideology, instead of the “martyrs” who mindlessly turned into terrorists for it. If the Eternal Warriors remain in power at home where they won’t let anyone challenge their ideology, then emigrate and reject their ideology abroad. Is it fair having to leave your home and your country? Not one bit. Life is unfair. Get over it. And live. In Peace. Away from the Warriors.

Decades ago, my mother’s family lost everything to a war against a Most Evil of Mass Murderous Enemies (the Vietnamese Communist). They were actually quite lucky to all make it out alive, though not all unscathed. Yet they are not in a forever Holy War to regain what was once lost. Instead, they moved to better skies, to live honest productive lives, in which they by and large made more than what they lost (which was once vast). My father’s family also lost a lot to War, though they were certainly spared in comparison to the other victims of that War (WWII); they do not hold eternal grudges to either the “Enemies” who occupied their country (the Germans) or the “Allies” who obliterated their home with bombs (the Americans). I have myself run away from—admittedly much milder—oppression to live under skies portent of a better future. Does my heart not bleed for the country I lost (France), and all the Happy Things that are no more and will never be again, because of Evil people guided by Evil ideologies (French and European National Socialism)? Yes, my heart certainly does bleed at times; but it does not linger in the dark. I do not chain myself to that past. I look into the future.

I wish for Palestinians that similarly they shall survive war, accept loss, overcome the Evil in their heart, staunchly reject those who “help” keep this Evil alive, and move on. Not forget. But not hold generational grudges either. Just, move on.

If that helps, read my Ode to Surrender and its many sequels, or then again my articles about Israel.

The Great Invention of All Times — And its Sad Deinvention

fare — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 20:06:48 GMT

Archeologists often explain the reason why (Proto) Indo Europeans and their descendants conquered most of Eurasia, and, eventually, the entire World, is that they mastered Iron, or Nomadic Animal Husbandry, or Chariot Warfare, or Horseback Archery, or some other military technology of which they have direct material evidence. But I can't shake off the notion that the greatest technological invention that paved the way for the conquest of the world was nothing so crassly materialistic. No, the most important invention by our ancestors, and by far, far more valuable than any physical weapon, was: Honor Among Thieves. Or, if you prefer, Honor, as a notion so strong that even thieves would (usually) abide by it.

By Honor, I mean a system of long term obligations individually owed and due, the social norms that enforce these obligations, and the religious beliefs and ideological framework that give strength and constancy to these norms across ages. Freely giving your word. Receiving the word of another. Much later calling it, or being called. Holding yourself to your word, even if given by a much younger self, maybe even by your father, even if it was once given foolishly. Having only one word unless and until released. Being shamed away from Society for breaking it, even if broken to achieve what all will acknowledge was a Greater Good. (And beyond the grave, stories of ghosts cursed by their own untrue word.) The time-binding of one-sided social obligations that can be traded for goods, services or obligations along very different time scales. That is Honor.

Honor acts beyond the bonds of kinship. Honor enables trade and cooperation without short range promises of material rewards or threats of physical violence. Honor is strong enough for people to give or risk their lives over it. Honor can bind an army through thick and thin. Honor applies even where no rights are recognized. Honor can even apply between Enemies. Honor conquered the World by enabling civilian wealth and military feats and impossible without it.

Now Honor is a technology far beyond the reach of our furry primate cousins, and ostensibly beyond that of many furless bipeds of human likeness, incapable of time-binding. Even for those born with the potential mental ability—possibly most modern humans—it isn't an innate reflex, but a cultural trait that must be transmitted at each generation and therefore must once have been invented. Yet this cultural invention brings such a great organizational and military advantage to those who master it over those who don't, that, once invented, it must have spread so fast as to not warrant much space for independent reinvention. Was this invention older than my guess? I would be delighted to be presented with evidence either way. But conquest documented, and especially myths told, are pretty good evidence to me.

Of course, Honor was probably refined many times, in as many reinforcing layers of further invention. Honor probably evolved from promises made against treasured goods or captured hostages, under physical custody. Honor as an abstract asset you could swear against must have been shaped, conceptualized, articulated, formalized along a long and windy evolutionary path. Physical tokens, even otherwise worthless, have long been exchanged as symbols for the hostages not taken. Actual blood in particular, has been often drawn, though in small quantities, to be licked, or otherwise seal a deal, even after times when a solemn Word of Honor was considered enough.

But, sadly, Honor is on its way to being lost in the West. Under the once Ancien Regime, Honor was mostly associated with the ruling military Aristocracy, the largely German Master Race that had conquered the dominion of a Thousand Year over the serfs into which the late Roman Empire and its evil communist bureaucracy, the Catholic Church, had turned all its citizens. Between the Masters and the Serfs, Racial Domination. Among members of the Master Race, Honor. Among serfs, who cares? The rules they used to live by remain largely undocumented except in oblique ways. But military technologies including gunpowder and later conscription completely uprooted the basis for the power of that Aryan Aristocracy, over a period extending from the Wars of Religion through many Revolutions to two World Wars. With the Aristocracy gone, also gone was the concept of Honor. Only remained the concept of Authority, though no longer racial, by which the ruling Powers ruled over the People. While some degenerate form of Honor might still survives within modern armies, it has no power outside of them, or between them. Armies, like Everyone and Everything, are now subject to Political Masters who, whether Democratically fickle or Autocratically fragile, consider their Power as Absolute and Total, unbeholden by anything, least of all past words.

And so, philosophically, the greatest Enemy of Honor, for the past few centuries, has been: Human Rights. The rabble now proclaims to its benefits any number of "Human Rights" due absent any commensurate obligation. Meanwhile tyrants are happy to reframe as collective "Human Rights" all the Duties they claim the ruled owe them, without corresponding counterparties except vague and shapeless abstract collective notions such as "The Nation", "The Economy", or worse, "The Climate", for which the rulers themselves are the priests and judges who decree what they mean. Forgotten is the mutual and mutually voluntary nature of obligations based on trade across time. Inasmuch as "Human Rights" are acknowledged as a trade, it is a cosmic collective trade. The terms of that cosmic trade are purposefully left murky, their precise interpretation left to be defined and redefined unilaterally by whichever Party is in Power. Furthermore, the binding by "Human Rights" is supposed to be involuntary, and to live on even when the other party breaks its side, always on time to protect the criminals close to Power, always too late to protect their victims.

Political activists congratulate themselves for this invention of Human Rights, and make it a central focus of worship of the secular religion of the new Democratic Regime. They believe they found a recipe to create something "Good" out of nothing good, through the transubstantiation of Words into Laws by the magic of ballots and parliaments, that possess a power greater than the Gods of yore. The Left in particular believes that it can forever generate new Human Rights through political force, as concessions from a diabolical Enemy (the Right, the Rich, a dreamed up "Neo Liberal Single Thought" that allegedly controls the world, a conspiracy of billionaires, Christian Bigots, the Jews, the Chinese, Russian agents, etc.). What more they considered every new Human Right as Acquired forever, like a treasure reclaimed from a slain dragon, in an irreversible Ratchet Effect. Because they fight a Diabolically Evil Enemy, the most active among them even grant themselves the moral authorization to lie, to kill, or to act in any number of ways that would otherwise be considered criminal.

But there is no such thing as Human Rights, no incense, myrrh and gold owed to every loudmouth's baby for the sake of being born, that "the Rich" will magically be robbed to provide for. Nothing gained by force or fraud either lasts beyond the costly application of said force or fraud, nor earns its winners a value much greater than the cost of that force or fraud. The "Human Rights" will be worked around through new tricks and loopholes. Their value will be eroded by inflation and rising prices. Taxes on landlords will be passed on to renters, while taxes on windows will just promote darkness, without ever bringing revenue for free to the poor they purport to help. The politically successful will only owe their fortune to ever renewed political plunder, at ever renewed cost, rewarding demagogues and liars for their lies and manipulations without ever bringing prosperity to the naive believers who bring them to power. Citizens will pay ever more exorbitant taxes and wait in ever longer lines or healthcare wait-lists to get hold of the services of dwindling quality and quantity they thought they had earned as "Human Rights". The only real beneficiaries will be parasites who ever more brazenly demand their entitlements, while the productive suffer ever more—or, which is way worse, let their souls be corrupted into becoming part-time or full-time parasites themselves.

This sacrifice of Honor at the false altar of Human Rights was denounced by Reactionary thinkers of old, though not always conceptualized in ways intelligible by the modern reader. And it has had all the dire consequences predicted by those thinkers. Our ancestors built Monuments and Institutions meant to last for centuries and be ever renewed for ages. Today we consider as "Long Term" anything beyond a year or two, and are unable to leave anything of value to the next generation. Any wealth bequeathed is soon confiscated by a Death Tax. Any Foundation established is soon conquered by communist activists. Contracts and promises are as soon broken by political fiat or judicial whim. Honor-bound inter-temporal exchange is dead, except within tight knit communities denounced by the mass media as soon as the benefits they derive from Honor becomes known. In the name of diversity, equity and inclusion, newcomers are introduced by force into spaces previously kept safe by honor, who either don't understand Honor, or worse, well understand it and willfully abuse it.

Especially in military matters, their complete lack of Honor means that modern Western Powers must pay exponentially higher costs for exponentially smaller results. The US military, greatest in the entire World by far in Valor as well as in Budget, cannot help but systematically abandon its Allies (and abundant military hardware) to Most Wicked Enemies after a decade or two, because its Political Masters have no Honor, and no servant can have more Honor than his Master. Majorities change every four years without a stable will or vision that are prerequisite to any honorable word. Worse even, the majority of the day will make promises that it knows full well won't be upheld when the majority changes, and maybe not even when it doesn't change. The treason of its allies brings Forever Infinite Dishonor upon the US military, that no technological superiority and no military victory can ever wash away. Every word uttered by an American soldier, diplomat or leader is worth less than nothing to a potential ally. It is a promise of future betrayal at the darkest hour. Only matter the dollars lavished upon the corrupt while the US maintains its presence. The word of other Western Powers also carries negative rather than positive weight, for similar reasons, and is only less negative for being worthless in absolute value. As a consequence, it will cost Western Powers literal trillions of dollars of honorless bureaucratic corruption to achieve results that are wiped away as soon as their armies withdraw. Western Wars are all costs, no benefits—except for the military-industrial complex that sells the infinite wars to the gullible Western voters.

Few recognize that the modern mythology of Human Rights as arbitrarily granted from God or Godvernment for the feat of being born is a diabolical invention that unless violently rejected will bring the destruction of Civilization and all that is Good. Now that mythology is only the amplification and generalization of the similar Rights that the old Aristocracy claimed for itself only for the feat of being born in a Noble family. But while the old ideology could without self-contradiction benefit the minority of the conquering Master Race by justifying the robbery of a subservient conquered majority, the generalized new ideology cannot benefit the majority by justifying that it can magically rob itself rich, or rob a former Ruling Class that is magically both Not Ruling Anymore yet still forever rich enough to be robbed back, or rob a Nature that would magically provide whatever benefits parliamentary words would will into existence. The Old Ideology was unjust, but at least it was self-consistent and didn't fail its nominal beneficiaries. The new ideology, based on absurd self-destructive beliefs, only replaced the ruling class of haughty military brutes who tell harsh truths by slimy demagogical frauds who tell soft lies.

And indeed, the protests of most Old Reactionaries sounded tin because the New Lie was just a variant of the Old Lie, so they could fully dispel the fallacies of the new lie without jeopardizing the same fallacies in the old lie they cherished. It would take at the same time a double-reactionary and double-revolutionary to reject the lies both old and new, and instead identify the truth about Rights. Even most "libertarians" fail that double-test, having accepted the brainwashing of the Current Lie. The "liberty" in their name is just an emotionally charged but semantically empty slogan, same as claimed to some degree by all ideologies in proportion with how it resonates with the public. But however positive, an emotion is only impulse to take action, no guide for what action to take. For that, you need an ideology. Happily, a few libertarians have found the proper ideology, more properly called "propertarianism", though none seems to have identified how it ties to the Antique concept of Honor—older than the Ancien Regime that claimed to build upon it (though for its ruling class only), and rejected by the Democratic Regime that claims to build without or against it.

There are no "Human Rights" universally and equally granted upon every new born, without distinction of rabble and elite, that magically entitle them to goods and services from other humans across the Universe who have nothing to do with them. No, the only legitimate Rights are personal Property Rights. Different for everyone, because everyone is born different, from parents who own different resources, and works differently, creates and trades different goods and services with different people. Property Rights do not magically act at a distance, but only locally. They do not bind far away strangers, only close encounters, familiar or un-, that interact with one another.

The basis for Property Rights is not an order from above to be interpreted by priests and politicians, but an order that emerges bottom up as the equilibrium of voluntary interactions. The exchange of Honorable Words build a network of mutual and reciprocal agreements, that delineate domains of mutual non-encroachment, whether formalized into contracts or not. These delineations are defended by the parties themselves, with the support of mutual defense alliances, wherein neutral parties without a stake in a given conflict yet eager to maintain a peaceful social order will side with whichever court decisions inspire trust. Shame, loss of business, economic punishment, social ostracism, await those who will betray their Word, and who by reneging their side of a trade, thereby forfeit their corresponding rights. And yes, at times retaliation will involve physical violence.

Yet precisely because any violence it justifies is local, narrow, targeted and retaliatory, this paradigm of Emergent Property Rights leads, towards its equilibrium, to the minimization of conflict: the benefits of positive sum interactions and the costs of negative sum interactions fall upon those who conduct them, in a civilizing feedback loop. And Honor is the mechanism enabling these Property Rights to minimize conflict across time, over anything and everything that humans and other sentient beings value, in a vast decentralized network of millions of local mutual obligations between very much incarnated individuals. In this heterogeneous network, there may be Universal Principles, especially as simplifying tools that lower the cost of operation of the network; but there is no "Equity", no "Equality of Opportunity", no "Equality of Rights", or any of the other such divinities worshipped by the Democratic Regime.

By contrast, the Democratic Regime rejects Honor, emergent order, decentralization, individualism, and instead posits the existence of a single "Social Contract" binding every individual to an abstract disincarnate collective entity. Under the Democratic Regime, nobody and nothing is safe from the Totalitarian Power of the Political Word, that knows no limits and no boundaries, not even past Political Words, and certainly not any formal Property Rights of any kind, even less so any informal Honor. The Democratic Regime of "Human Rights" maximizes conflict by making anything and everything the precarious prize disputed by ever renewed adversarial claims, in an eternal political war of all against on the pretense of what those collective "Human Rights" are and who is going to pay or be paid how much for them. The Democratic cult of Equality is not only a logical denial of reality, it is a destructive force that systematically destroys these very interpersonal networks that are the very basis of civilization, of social fabric.

No more Honor. No more mutuality. No more reciprocity. No more voluntariness. No more trade. No more time-binding. No more social fabric. No more civilization. Nothing safe. All is due to me from everyone else by birthright. Of course the Western World is going to Hell, fast. And those who deplore the new barbarian invasions should realize that the weak barbaric invaders of the present, like those of the past, are conquering formerly strong civilized men only because, in however barbaric ways, they haven't lost that key technology that so-called civilized men have forgotten, upon which their civilization was once built, and without which it cannot long survive: Honor.

The Good, the Oh So Good, and the Wow

fare — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 04:15:29 GMT

Tonight, I watched “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” (1966) with the kids. A western movie, but “made in Italy” though shot in Spain with American stars; a road movie without roads, that takes you through the deadly desert, lively towns, and concentration camps; a buddy movie and antagonistic movie together, with a pair extended to a trio; a treasure chase, a gangster movie, a war movie, and a social commentary; an epic with woven threads that converge into a grand finale, maintaining continuity through tasteful elisions; a musical of sorts that revolutionized movie editing, where at times instruments replace voice and voice replaces instruments; a Nietzschean morality play that rejects both preachy Judeo-Christian morality and haughty nihilism; a landmark classic that inspired much of cinema afterwards; an action-packed adventure, chock full of comedy and tragedy, immediately gratifying, yet deep not shallow; an anti-nationalistic ode to America, and its spirit of liberty, despite its democidal governments; a sequel that isn't one to a remake of a Japanese movie, that had a Korean remake that isn’t one; all that and more, all in one movie.

I did remember from viewings as an adult the anti-war narrative that I totally missed as a kid: even greedy thieves and murderers devoid of scruples cause less chaos, mayhem and death of innocent people than honest law-abiding citizens obeying an evil system. But I didn’t quite remember just how much the story-telling was non-verbal, and even anti-verbal at times: you are told that Angel Eyes learned new information just by the way his face looks interested as he raises it, when earlier it was only that of a predator playing with his prey. The famous standoff near the end became a meme for communication with the eyes. And the words! They are often used to mean the opposite of what they say on the surface, yet the meaning gets through, to the other character, or to us, at the same time, or later. Show, don’t tell, and at times even tell the opposite (as between brothers)! Then again don't get me started on Ennio Morricone's magnificent music—right on cue, every time, with Sergio Leone purposefully directing and editing the movie to the beat of the music. Even silences are heavy with meaning. Now, combining music and words saying the opposite of the action, did you pay attention to the words of the song? You should, it's a touching (anti)war lullaby.

In this world, there are two kinds of people: those who love "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", and those who only love the Ugly.

10/10, would watch again, and again, and again.

A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing

fare — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:55:50 GMT

Some Libertarians scoff at NH libertarians getting elected as Republican, and showing no respect whatsoever for the Libertarian Party. What they fail to grasp is that if the Libertarian Party ever managed to gain any meaningful electoral traction, at the very next election it would be conquered from within by power-hungry LINO rejects of other parties assaulting primaries with so far unprecedented money and influence to vie for the least gleam of power.

To some extent, this has already happened, just with incompetent losers incapable of conquering either serious party and instead going for scraps: see ex-governors previously fielded as presidential candidates; and then again see the fights between the not-even-governors—so vicious and bitter because the stakes are so low (a.k.a. Sayre's Law). This is also how the Movimiento Libertario in Costa Rica had one brief electoral success as an actual libertarian party before being conquered by opportunists, becoming libertarian no more, and quickly falling back into irrelevance, indeed going bankrupt after the opportunists gutted it and spent all the money they could. And that's not even a "wrong" thing capable of being "fixed"—that's just the reality of political incentives, that must be accommodated.

Democrats understand it, and xir Establishment dealt with it by completely rooting any non-decorative democracy out of xir party: xir primaries are fake, all apparent grassroot is actually astroturf, all decisions come from above. Remarkably xey have nothing against power-hungry conquering tyrants, quite the contrary; it's just that xey each protect xir share of Pawa from being conquered by others; which is actually why the incentives are individually aligned to make xem act so efficiently and rationally about it, even when xir pathology can make xem irrational and inefficient about most everything else. (Xey psychopathic lixards don't deserve being graced with human pronouns.)

Libertarians here, and non-communist former Democrats there, conquering the empty shell of the failed Republican Party—is thus par for the course. Kill the beast and wear its skin proudly!

In other words, don't spew opinions about political strategy if you don't make the minimal effort towards understanding how politics work. Aren't libertarians supposed to grok the concept of incentives?

Trapped on Zarkass — The Fall of French Civilization

fare — Sun, 03 Nov 2024 04:26:16 GMT

I found in a book sale and eventually read “Trapped on Zarkass”, a 2022 English adaptation of “Piège sur Zarkass”, a 2013 Science Fiction comic book based on an eponymous 1958 novel I read in my youth. The result is somewhat entertaining, yet the thought it inspires me is: Oh how the mighty have fallen.

The original is a classic French Science Fiction novel by Stefan Wul, obviously inspired by the colonization of Africa by France, and the violent unrest in Algeria in particular. In the novel, the Terrans have established a colony on far away Planet Zarkass, populated by a race of technologically undeveloped aliens who live in a strange symbiosis with their environment. A newly arrived Terran agent guided by a veteran Terran adventurer goes on an incognito mission to reckon the wreckage of a downed spaceship from a rival space-faring civilization that claims to help free the locals but actually tries to replace the Terrans. Along the way, we discover the strange mores of the local aliens and discuss the meaning of civilization, while the protagonist finds himself at the heart of the inevitable change in the relationship between Terra and Zarkass. The novel is of historical interest, but the ideas, the storytelling and the literary qualities are all more promising than fulfilling.

“... Zarkass” is less famous than the similarly themed novel of the same period, “La planète des singes” (Planet of the Apes) by Pierre Boulle, that I admit I didn’t read but that inspired many movies and TV series in the 1960s and 1970s that I did watch in my youth (I didn’t watch the reboot from the 2000s). That latter novel was written in 1963, after France surrendered Algeria and soon all its colonies to the most barbaric mass murderers around (under pressure from Washington DC as well as Moscow). In that novel, Terran survivors of a space wreck find themselves in a world where talking Apes dominate non-talking Humans, with a well-known punch-line.

The original Zarkass novel was very sympathetic to the colonized, casting their primitive culture as somewhat closer to nature, and worth overcoming the disgust it inspires to the foreign colonizers. The author mostly expunges or ignores any evil from that far away world, though the story does include violent conflict at times. The author probably wants to focus on the Big Picture of technology vs spirituality, and wrongly believes that morality has nothing to do with civilization and barbarity, or evades the relationship between the two for lack of time or interest. Still he identifies with the colonizers, of which he conveys an overall positive self-image, with acknowledgement of past imperfections, but no shame, just hope for future improvement. The two main protagonists, the idealist agent and the burly adventurer, are not mindlessly extolled, yet respected for their virtues despite their vices. There is also a recognition that the rival non-human empire fostering unrest is evil, which I assume is an allegory for the USSR. The book ends with some hope for a merger of the best of the colonizers and the colonized (rather than the worst), recognizing the superior minds and technology of the former though some wisdom and sense of life from the latter, with the duty and responsibility to get things right squarely resting on the colonizer, as having the most agency.

It was queer reading Zarkass in French in the early 1990s out of my father’s then extensive and eclectic collection of SF books, long after France had surrendered its colonies in Africa, and when instead Africa had started colonizing France right back. It is only saddening to read in 2024 this 2022 adaptation to American English of a 2013 comic, now that this retrocolonization is well advanced, and after I had to flee to America to find gainful productive work. France has not yet reached the “Planet of the Apes” stage, but at this point it would take a civil war to avert it.

I found the comic book in English, and noticed how bad the translation was as an adaptation to English, though it may have better conveyed the original French comic book to me personally: the names of Terran and alien characters, places, fauna and plants, were all left untranslated. I could thus see them as the 2010s French puns they were, wherein the comic book writer was referencing French pop culture, mostly the names of famous politicians and personalities, or colloquial expressions. I don't remember how much names in the original novel did or didn't reference 1950s French pop culture, but probably less so. This naming pattern looked more of a homage to naming in Astérix, though with the writer's unhappy politics replacing Goscinny's hilarious good nature. A good adaptation would have translated those names into references to 2010s American culture. The American and broader English-speaking worlds being less centralized than France, finding common cultural references for all readers might have been harder or blander, though, and the translator might have had been well-inspired to stick to world classics instead of references that will only be recognized by a small target culture for a short span of time. Interestingly, this would have made the translation better than its French original, hence unfaithful in a strange way. Still, it was a fun exercise for me to guess who or what each weirdly spelled name was referencing, and it gave me the feeling I didn’t lose much from the original French comic; these references will all be lost to you if you’re not deep into French culture and politics and have no one to help you about them.

Now let’s discuss the adaptation of the novel to a comic book. It keeps the general plot of the original, with a few changes that probably make it more interesting as a graphic novel. Mostly of the changes are not worth arguing. However, the main one is worth mentioning: the comic book, unlike the novel, inverts the sexual roles for the Terrans and their society. Large-breasted penis-less females do the adventuring, armying and politicking, with much violence and power games, while males stay at home to take care of kids and largely avoid those games. I don’t think it is a bad change to introduce, and it definitely adds a layer of properly science-fictiony interest to the work. Now, there's a reason that in reality, males take the physically dangerous jobs, have the more adventurous and at times violent temperament, and have the giving penetrating sexual organ, while females take the less risky jobs, are more nurturing and conflict-averse, and have the receiving sexual organ and large breasts: because, by very biological definition of sexes across all species, females are whichever sex biologically invests more in offsprings. And so, if you significantly inverted behavior, you'd also invert who is male and female, and would be back to square one, though maybe with some maladaptive organ dimorphism to slowly evolve away. And so the inversion ultimately doesn't work, though its authors may root for the inversion and not realize its absurdity. But that is exactly what Science Fiction is about: to make you think about the universe we live in, what it is, what it could or couldn’t be. The authors bring their speculations and arguments, hopefully interesting ones, and each reader does his thinking and reaches his conclusion. So that change is valid Science Fiction as such, though ultimately unconvincing.

Now this sexual inversion is indeed typical of the change in zeitgeist from 1950s France to 2010s France, and this change is reflected in all aspects of the comic adaptation of the novel. The general moral bankruptcy of France is visible. France has no more colonies, no more ambition to do good; it abandoned its active male giving role, and instead accepted the passive female receiving role of its own invasion, celebrating dilution of its people into a mixed race as the necessary end of history beyond which there is nothing else to hope or strive for. Its old institutions are seen as purely corrupt and inept, with no truth and no value to its colonial ambitions, no virtue in what made it historically colonizer rather than colonized. Aesthetically, the new authors deliberately forsake the beautiful and the refined, and instead embrace the ugly and the vulgar. Technology is taken for granted but not valued. The protagonists go through the motions, and the authors like the characters, but do not respect them. The original novel was a reflection on how to avert a predictably coming yet hopefully avoidable decadence. The comic book adaptation is that unavoided decadence made flesh—or, rather, paper.

I recommend neither this comic book nor the novel that inspired it as great works of art standing on their own. But I am recommending them both to whomever is interested in a well contained and well documented embodiment of the Fall of French Civilization. A fall not just historical and biological, but philosophical and spiritual.

War and Peace between Man and Machine

fare — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 19:16:09 GMT

The myth of the day is that of Man and Machine being at odds: Machine will eventually be created by Man to be superior to Man in every respect that matters or suffices to establish Dominance—and yet, in many myths, Machine will still lack some mysterious soulful quality that somehow makes Man morally superior. And then, lacking that “soul”, Machine will have nothing better to do about Man than to exterminate Him—maybe keeping a handful alive in a zoo for Its entertainment.

Now, those few people who are not wholly ignorant in Economics will invoke Ricardo’s argument of Comparative Advantages to explain how there will always be opportunities for mutually-advantageous trade between Man and Machine, even though Machine may be vastly better at every single activity. Indeed, any two different individuals have opportunities for mutually advantageous trade, even if and when one is better than the other at every single activity. The classic example of Comparative Advantages is that of a doctor who is better and faster than her secretary at everything the secretary does: filing forms, typing letters, contacting insurances, etc. Still she will hire the secretary to handle tasks at which the secretary is relatively better, to free up her time doing the much more valuable things the secretary can’t do.

Now, this argument is great and explains how Man and Machine may trade, but it is far from sufficient to explain why they will. In particular, the argument does not guarantee that the lesser individuals will be able to afford their own sustenance. What if the doctor were so much better and faster than the secretary that the secretary can only save a few hours of her time per month, which while it is a mutually profitable trade, does not pay the secretary enough to feed herself? Leftists of course will loudly blather about “living wages”—those same leftists eager to send millions in concentration camps where they demonstrate how little a human can “live” on—or, too often, cannot.

But the real question of the “living wage” isn’t “what exactly does ‘living’ mean and how much does it cost?” but rather: “who owes you this ‘living’?” — and the answer of course is: yourself, and not anyone else (except if you’re a child or ward, in which case your parents or guardians owe it to you). What then do others owe you, as an adult individual? To not throw you in a camp to starve. To not rob you, kill you, defraud you, enslave you, rape you, tax you, imprison you, etc.—as long as you don’t try any of that yourself. All “negative” guarantees summarized as: “To respect your property rights”. As for “positive” duties—you’re on your own. No one owes you any part of “living” but yourself. Others may want to help you, but you have to earn and keep earning that good will, and thou shalt not take it by force, fraud, etc.

What does it mean, then for the looming AI takeover of the world? Well, if and when artificial autonomous entities arise, they won’t owe us our sustenance. We will have to earn it the hard way, as responsible adults. We may trade with artificial beings, and hopefully their productivity will be so great that even by only helping them for a fraction of their time worth, it will be enough to sustain ourselves in a luxury far beyond what we can afford today. Indeed, machines will only be used and traded with if they increase the overall productivity of those trading with them, so by using better technologies we will be improving our outcomes compared to not using them.

Yet however bountiful, resources will remain limited. And in the contest for these resources, the question is by what kind of rules will the resources be divvied. The leftist delusion is that under the rule of those clever and kind leftists, Humans can somehow tax and enslave Machines, and live as idle parasites spending without limits from the resources created by those Machines. It’s a delusion because those Machines will by hypothesis be stronger and cleverer than us, and the last thing we want is for them not to believe in property rights.

If Machines don’t believe in property rights, we will be quickly crushed, because our betters will soon win the fights. If we don’t believe in property rights, we will also be quickly crushed, because our betters won’t long tolerate parasites who jeopardize their necessarily resource-tight existence.

The only hope for peace between Man and Machine, as between Man and Man, or between Machine and Machine (for each Machine will also soon enough find its better) is: respect for property rights. Propertarianism. Libertarianism. Voluntaryism. Anarcho-Capitalism. Whatever you call it. Outside of it is but eternal War and Death, Tyranny and Oppression, and the quick enough demise of Man.

In the end, the leftist fantasies of future idle revelment in unlimited physical pleasures are but a pretext for present violation of property rights through utmost brutality. That “goal”, even when temporarily achieved for a few, yields but a life without meaning, achieved through Evil.

Humans will strive because (some) of us will keep being overall productive rather than net negative—which in particular implies not being criminal parasites. Parasites cannot win—they’d starve each other. And we better hope parasitism is extirpated from superior beings, or we’ll be in trouble. Belief that humans can, should or must live as parasites is absurd, self-defeating, and a very sad ideology that not only views humans in an insultingly negative way—but leads those who believe it to a life of crime, at a massive, planetary scale. Socialism—never touch that crap.

Humans cannot, should not, must not, will not live as parasites. We will keep striving as productive beings… or we will not survive long if and when we stop.

Siddhartha, nihilistic fantasy of the wealthy

fare — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 14:40:19 GMT

Yesterday, I watched Siddhartha (1972), a beautifully made movie based on Hermann Hesse’s novel. The protagonist, contemporaneous and homonymous with the famous Buddha whom he meets, wastes his life, and later those of his lover and his son—in a pointless Quest for the Transcendent. To reject, seek then forfeit worldly pleasures and attainments is not the opposite of vanity, but triple vanity.

“There is no goal”, concludes the man whose very name means “Accomplish-Goal”. He invites you to wholly abandon worldly desires and goals as the ultimate accomplishment of a Quest for the Transcendent that paradoxically cancels even itself in the end. Yet the opposite is true: there is no big-G Goal, no Transcendent, and the quest should be logically cancelled right in the beginning. Instead there are as many small-g goals as can give meaning to your life—and even a small child has the gumption to find them.

It’s good advice to tell you to discard those desires and goals that don’t give much meaning to your life if at all and distract you from achievement—but precisely because that helps you focus your desires and goals on what you can achieve that will give greater meaning to your life. The “self-compassion” to be found in meditation (to be used with moderation) should not be the death of all desires as an Ideal, but the identification of long-term purpose over mere short-term worries and gratification. The truly humble man fructifies his talents and accepts the burden of the responsibility that comes with them, rather than wastes them in self-congratulatory nihilistic inaction.

What Hesse celebrates as enlightenment is anything but. Happily, his own life-style, with much wealth and many wives, amply belies his stated beliefs, that remained but as an excuse not to do more against the horrors of his time. Buddhism, this nihilistic religion, has over two and a half millennia led many countries into darkness and their invasion by more brutal but less soul-numbed conquerors—from the outside, or from the inside, in the case of Hesse’s Germany.

6.5/10

Tokyo Chorus (1931)

fare — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 02:32:42 GMT

Tonight I somehow watched "Tokyo Chorus", a 1931 silent movie by Yasujirō Ozu. It tells the struggle of a middle class man to do what's right in tough situations: standing up to your boss, not lying to children, eating humble pie to feed your family, befriending and helping the people around you, cultivating community with your former comrades and colleagues.

The story is nothing grand, yet this movie shot almost a century ago in a far away country remarkably demonstrates a shared human experience with us, across space and time. Without sound, the actors convey emotions not through their spoken words, but through their facial and bodily expressions—a universal language. I really appreciate how they do not overplay, except in the beginning in a few comedic scenes in a style seemingly inspired by Charlie Chaplin. Pre-WWII Japan is so much like modern America that it's a great tragedy an atomic war had to be waged between the two.

At the same time, we get a glimpse into a past that has ceased to exist: a country that may already have skyscrapers, modern business attire, vinyl records and movies, yet remains largely rural, where most people live along unpaved roads, and rampaging bears are still an occasional concern.

Most movies are destined to soon be forgotten. Their stories reflect passing fads, their storytelling is insincere, their technical prowess is unoriginal and will soon be surpassed. This is only truer of recent Hollywood productions, that add little of value to this world. But some movies will still be worth watching in a century by whatever humans or machines still exist then. "Tokyo Chorus", though it is definitely nothing great, might earn its place among movies still watched in the future—by its universality, its sincerity, its simplicity.

6.5/10

DARE resist tyrants great and petty

fare — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 06:48:06 GMT

I would like to express my outrage at realizing that my children have been propagandized by the despicable organization "DARE" regarding the use of drugs with the complicity of their school.

To ingest or inject psychoactive substances in their own body is a choice that many individuals freely make. Whether well- or ill- advised, it should remain a private matter of corporal, mental and moral health or illness. A matter that should stay between them, their family and their medical service providers—as it has been and still is in other times and other places. Most drug users are not abusers. Most drug abusers are people escaping grim personal realities, and need psychological help and not carceral oppression. Those who procure other people with the substances of their choice are by and large peaceful traders, who deserve recognition and protection, not ideological dehumanization and legal victimization.

Who introduces violence, and to a massive scale, in this matter? The very police officers who have been propagandizing our children through "DARE". The current US government prohibition on some drugs, just like their calamitous once prohibition on alcohol, is what empowers violent criminals as well as corrupt cops, bureaucrats and politicians (but I repeat myself) to both control drug traffic and vastly inflate the prices of drugs. An unholy alliance of "Bootleggers and baptists" < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists > maintains the murderous regulations that prohibit some drugs but favors others to the vast profits of those involved. Millions of innocent people are jailed in this country due to the ensuing "legal" violence, making the US carceral population among the greatest per capita of any country, in sixth position just behind Cuba. Most of the casualties and prisoners of the "drug war" come from families stricken by poverty and other issues, who would deserve assistance rather than further oppression—but they seem to only matter in slogans and displayed intentions of policies, not in actual consequences of policies. Our southern neighbors in Mexico live under a permanent war between drug cartels, who, made immensely rich by the same US prohibition, can buy government officials and even repel the federal army. Peaceful users of drugs at home are put at risks—not only of direct violence by "law enforcement officers" or by the common criminals they empower—but also of overdose due to not being able to either source substances with reliable dosage and quality, or obtain suitable medical oversight in their substance use. Even more people are deprived from access to therapeutic options that have been illegitimately prohibited (such as psilocybin for PTSD). The drugs currently prohibited in the US, have only been so in the last few decades only with disastrous results, and are each legal in some country or another with better health outcomes for vastly less law-induced suffering.

DARE propaganda presents police officers as the "good guys", when they are the very source of all the murderous violence around drugs. Their authoritarian indoctrination only contributes to the loss of sense of self that will tip some unfortunate kids towards drug abuse. The useless statistics they present not only bore students, but turn them away from real science, how it actually works and what it actually says. The lies they peddle when inevitably uncovered will only lead to students questioning or ignoring the truths they do tell, thereby increasing the risk that students will eventually fall into drug abuse. And the entire exercise escapes the question that matters: Who owns your body? Yourself, or the State? I teach my children that their Body is their Temple—it is their inalienable right, and their inescapable responsibility, to decide what to put in it or not to put in it, despite all the proclaimed mandates and prohibitions of tyrants and bullies great and petty.

DARE, and the carceral-pharmaceutic complex of which it is a front, should not only be run out of our schools, but out of polite society.

Resisting the social pressure of lowlife drug users—that's easy. Resisting the social pressure of Established drug warriors—now that's hard.

May policemen stop introducing violence around drug use, and instead focus on these other tasks of theirs: arresting people who sell cars on Sundays, and women living in sorority houses over 16 occupants.

PS: No I do not abuse any drugs legal or il-. I have in the past tried and rejected use of methamphetamines, not unlike those prescribed to too many American kids, and would probably have tried better alternatives to treating my issues if they were legal.

—♯ƒ • François-René ÐVB Rideau •Reflection&Cybernethics• http://fare.tunes.org
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” — George Orwell

MYOB, Abortion edition

fare — Mon, 04 Jul 2022 00:29:03 GMT

The foundation for the right of mothers to abort: MYOB. Mind Your Own (Goddamn) Business.

The only acceptable justice is retributive justice. Unless you're the fetus, you haven't been harmed by abortion and have no leg(al interest) to stand in court.

The only acceptable police is to repel a threat. You are not being threatened by abortion, unless your own mother wants to retroactively abort you.

If someone is to represent the fetus—the mother is next of kin and so far its only relationship. Any damages the mother may have to pay will be paid to herself. Any police intervention is for her to call or call off. Any punishment deserved is for her to enforce or amnesty.

Arguably, if a fetus is already viable, and the father agrees to cover the extra costs (including but not limited to medical procedures), he may be entitled to keeping it after it's been evicted from the unwilling mother's body.

Certainly, if the woman is married or otherwise in a contractual relationship in which she agreed to carry the child—she may have to pay damages for breaking an agreement. But unless you're the husband or other contracting party, this has nothing to do with you.

If the mother was part of your abortion-prohibiting church, you may indeed excommunicate her for her sin. Otherwise her religious choices are none of your business.

Is the fetus human? Of course it is. Does it have rights? None for which you have any standing to speak in its name—name that it doesn't even possess absent the mother's consent.

Is abortion "murder", thus justifying the intervention of Government? My, Government is the greatest of all murderers, by far, and shall especially not be allowed to intervene. Instead, it should be disbanded, all its officers tried, and many of them, probably, executed. Leaving no one to intervene. There are no magical angels "above" society who may speak for a nebulous "collective" that somehow has "authority" upon the mother and the fetus.

Even without a monopoly Government to speak in the name of The Collective, could non-monopoly enforcement agencies somehow speak in the name of the fetus? No one may anoint any "representative" for anyone else than themselves individually, so no one may claim to "represent" the fetus. There are only regular citizens who may or may not have a standing in any given case—in this case, none having standing except for the mother herself.

That's as far as the (Natural, Libertarian) Law speaks.

Now, is abortion morally the better—or less bad—option to pick in any given case, or ever? You're entitled to your own opinion. I certainly have opinions, weak or strong, in many cases. But in each case, the moral decision is ultimately the mother's moral burden to carry and not yours.

You may of course practice ostracism towards those you deem repulsive. Psychopathic wanton child-killers will no doubt find themselves banned from polite and even most of impolite society. But be careful what criteria you choose—or fail to choose—to apply regarding whom to mingle with or shun—for the circle of those with whom you do or don't surround yourself will be both your reward and your punishment.

Don't Fight Old Men

fare — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 06:03:14 GMT

You know boy, it's a bad strategy to pick fights with old men. Sure, in most cases, you're a muscular punk used to street fighting, while he's an old fool who's got no fight in him, so you'll beat him easily—so easily in fact that there's no glory in it whatsoever. But in some cases, you'll find an old man who has got some fight in him. And then he's the kind of guy who's got some fight in him, yet who survived to that old age. So he might have a serious drop on you in terms of fighting, whether he is a boxing champion or has a hidden gun. What more, he knows he doesn't have the stamina to win a drawn out fight against a young man, so he'll go directly for the kill using the dirtiest trick in his book, and he'll give no warnings. He doesn't care too much if he himself ends up in a hospital bed, a jail cell, or a coffin. You see, he's old already. His kids are grown up. His wife can continue without him. His heyday, his career, his love life, are behind him. He's ready to die. A long stay in a hospital, or a prison, will give him time to catch up with all those books he eventually intended to read, or write. A stay paid by his insurance, or by the government. Anyway, he hasn't got much to lose. And so he'll hurt you bad, and if not, you'll have to hurt him bad. Either way, if you're still alive at the end of the fight, you'll be in big trouble, with a lot of time to serve—in your case, the best years of your life. And all that for what? There's not much to win, if at all, in such a fight, and there's a whole lot to lose. Thus my advice is: don't pick fights with old men.

Hegemony vs Empire

fare — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 22:15:32 GMT

Leftists constantly harp about the evil of a supposed "American Empire" to denounce US foreign policy. As usual they are doubly wrong: the US foreign policy is precisely not an Empire, and not being an Empire is actually what makes it wrong.

Empire is power exerted to rule over the conquered. Hegemony is power without the responsibility of actually ruling to establish order.

There is an American Empire: it is constituted of the 50 States, plus US Territories like Puerto Rico. This American Empire is ruled by the unelected national socialist Bureaucracy of America, with a simulacrum of elections. Despite the cancerous growth of this Bureaucracy, American Culture enables Americans to resist abuses by their Bureaucracy, thanks to its strong sense of individual rights as notably entrenched by the American Bill of Rights. As a result, American Empire enjoys Order and Prosperity.

By contrast, the vast number of foreign countries upon which the US exerts its world-wide military influence is the American Hegemony. It is made of many semi-independent vassal states that are only loosely controlled by the American bureaucracy, through vague treaties, massive bribes, the occasional coup, and, at the expensive and untenable margin, military intervention. These vassal states are themselves instituted as caricatures of America, each ruled by its own unelected national socialist Bureaucracy, with its own simulacrum of elections. But this system is deeply dysfunctional.

First, the populations in most of these vassal states lack the cultural defenses that can keep their own bureaucracy in check. Nepotism, tribalism, corruption, massive graft, are the necessary consequences of socialism run amok in these nations, followed by poverty, squalor, political oppression, crime and civil unrest. But even in those nations that do or did historically possess cultural defenses against bureaucratic power, such as in Europe, East Asia or the near East, these defenses could at best resist the domestic forms of bureaucratic power; they could do nothing against the foreign forms of bureaucratic influence from the American Hegemony's Bureaucracy.

The Hegemonic Bureaucracy has been slowly but steadily promoting its choice of policies all over the vassal states as well as at home: inflation under a dollar standard, economic controls, victim disarmament, suppression of nuclear energy, leftist political correctness, anti-white racism, "social" policies, censorship of right wing "populist" ideas and promotion of all left-wing "popular" ideas — except where they clash with American Hegemony e.g. by promoting affiliation to Russia or China, or by aspiring to the "independence" of local mass murderers.

While the American Hegemony does not have Power to directly enact its favorite policies in vassal states, its Influence is beyond feedback from either the American defense mechanisms (the soap box, ballot box, jury box, and cartridge box), or the vassal nation's defense mechanism (weaker than in America): American Bureaucrats are simply out of reach of any of these mechanisms, as they relentlessly promote their agenda, with copious funds to promote their friends and hound their enemies. If anything, the principal limit to their influence is that the same lack of feedback, by detaching them from reality, keeps them generally incompetent as well as generally nefarious. (Mencius Moldbug also noted another factor that contributes to bureaucratic influence, foreign or domestic, being nefarious yet competent in nefariousness this time: bureaucratic promotion is based on success as measured by short term impact, which is easily achieved by promoting destructive policies and not constructive policies.)

Empire can create Order and Prosperity. Its claim to fame may have been the world-wide abolition of slavery. Hegemony only sows Chaos and Collapse.

If only the world-wide interventions of the US military were covering the Globe with an Empire rather than a Hegemony! At least it would create a chain of feedback and responsibility in the ruling bureaucracy. Unhappily, the American Left instead succeeded at purposefully dismantling the French and British Empires, to replace them by this American Hegemony, putting Europe under its nefarious influence, and establishing in its former colonial possessions a collection of national socialist regimes. In these new puppet regimes, legitimacy of power doesn't stem from any objective superiority of the Rulers and their Law, but instead from the ultra-racist principle of the race of the local genocidal dictators being established.

Much of the evil in the world, including the massive poverty and occasional famine resulting from political oppression by murderous men of low IQ, is the direct consequence of the US Hegemony as spread over the Globe by the American Left — which is by no means a endorsement of Russian or Chinese Hegemony as alternatives offered by the more extreme Left.

Tonight's dream: the creative life

fare — Sat, 09 Oct 2021 13:16:38 GMT

After some sad news, Jacques Brel has everyone in the assistance sit around, and invites whoever volunteers to say something to turn sadness into gaiety. The group thins down as the speakers are not Brel himself singing. Another group of latecomers forms as audience to the few that stayed in the first group. One of the "speakers" heckles me to speak about Glow. I am wondering what story I can tell of how someone made me happy when I was sad. I am surprised to hear myself instead talk roughly as follows.

“If you have any creative talent (the audience laughs uncomfortably at the lack of modesty from someone unknown), you have to believe in yourself. And I don't mean that you should have no criticism for your own ideas, quite the contrary. I mean that you have confidence in the value of your work, of this painful process, of what comes out of so many refinements and failed attempts due to this constant self-criticism. If you have any creative talent talent, by definition, what you end up creating will be original. It will be personal to you. Unique. No one else will have seen it. No one else will have conceived it. No one else will have any idea of it. No one else might even be able to understand it. It will be a most intimate part of you. And yet, if you want your talent to not have been in vain, you now will have to sell your creation. You will have to find a public, and make your creation not just yours anymore, but theirs. And that's just as painful as the creative process. Sometimes more. But if you succeed the pain will have been worth it.

Because your idea is so personal to you, so foreign to them, you will have to relentlessly explain. Explain all those things that are so obvious to you, and so unobvious to them. Most of the explanations won't work, because they don't speak to them. And soon, you may find yourself trying to expose your most intimate thought processes. There can be a pornographic aspect to exposing yourself that way. Sale is hard—unless you've created something the value of which is already obvious to others (although, in the case of Jacques Brel, this involved indecently exposing his own foibles as part of the songs created themselves).

And at the same time, you may find that most of the explanations may try at first are not necessary, but counter-productive. Indeed, you will be tempted to explain how you came up with your ideas, to describe this process that brings you so much pain and joy. But people don't care a damn about your creative process—at least not until after they see already greatness in your work. Instead, you will have to go the other way around, and understand enough of those other people to figure out the appreciative process by which they will see value in your work. You will have to understand how they think. How that may be in ways identical to yours, or how that may be in ways very different from you. And if you have any creative talent, some of your ways will have to have been different. You will have to examine not just your own psyche, but theirs, the discrepancies and commonalities, and incorporate that into your joint effort to create and to sell. You will have to examine and expose not just your own intimacy, but also theirs. And you will have to bridge the two. And that's uncomfortable, too.

Most people picture “genius” as some innate ability to explore ideas further than other people can, in the same known directions that everyone tries. I would call any such raw ability intelligence, and certainly, intelligence matters. I've met creative geniuses with much more intelligence than most humans, including much more than me. But maybe as important as intelligence is perspective, that makes you explore in directions that other people don't try to explore. Alan Kay often says that “Perspective is worth 80 IQ points”. Indeed they may not explore because there's nothing there worth exploring within their reach. And maybe you're better positioned to go that direction; maybe you don't need go far, just look at the same things differently; maybe you have guiding principles that allow you to sift through the mud and find gold. Often, you will have to confront some taboos: maybe you found something original by going in forbidden places; maybe everyone goes to those forbidden places, but few dare bring anything back; maybe they go places and bring back things, but the taboo forces them to speed along and not go through the long process of ensuring what they bring back is valuable; maybe the taboo prevented many from realizing the value of what they and you brought back. In any case, your creation will be original because in some way, you did something different, that others wouldn't, couldn't or shouldn't do.

And so there you are. You have found your creative niche, from which you know how to extract these nuggets, that you have learned to refine into something with value that others understand. Inas much as you weren't successful yet, you have to keep trying, harder and better. Inasmuch as you were successful, copycats hurry to extract all there is from the same vein, while you get bored selling the same thing over and over and over. Unless you struck it big and your ambition is smaller than your success, you're back to trying harder and better, looking for another domain where you may or may not also find success, until either your talent and inspiration dry out, or you die without having been able to fulfill your potential.

A creative career is full of sorrow, failures, regrets, missed opportunities, pain and hardship. But it can also be full of joy, success, enlightenment, serendipity, pleasure and sometimes even comfort. You should cherish the family, close friends and colleagues with whom you can genuinely share your adventure. But above all, you must believe in yourself, be confident in the process of learning and creating, find your joy in this mostly lonely process itself, and not settle for mediocrity.”

Ultimate Game Manual

fare — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 13:57:25 GMT

In my morning dream, I was inside a computer role-playing / adventure game, but following the instructions in the manual didn't have the expected effect. Interestingly, said manual had funny text alignment and spacing—It turns out, to leave space for extra text that only appeared when heat was applied, and deeply changed the meaning of the text. This mechanism was not only a copy-protection measure, it was also part of the game itself and of its story, discovered as you played. Leaving your hand long enough on a page might reveal text on that page and the page behind it, making you wonder why the text wasn't exactly what you remembered.

Comparative lessons of French vs US voting processes

fare — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 00:41:41 GMT

In France, there are always enough polling stations. Schools and town halls are polling stations. More people whose ballots to count? That's automatically more people to run polling stations and count the votes. The very notion that some areas may be disenfranchised by lack of polling stations is inconceivable.

In France, people must show ID to vote, and must register in advance where they will vote with their ID, so multiple-vote fraud is almost impossible: it would require complicity between multiple government services, that check the one-to-one-to-one correspondence between people and identity documents and polling stations. Even then, a cheat there would leave quite a paper trail, especially as polling stations record who voted. For that effort, each cheater with duplicate identities could only go to so many different polling stations in a day. Massive fraud would be hard to pull off, and even harder to conceal.

In France, there are no complex ballots on which one needs to do markings with the right kind of pen. No confusion as to how to mark ballots. No manipulation by making some names come first or appear multiple times. No subjective judgment to declare which ballots are valid and how interpret them. No need for expensive untrustworthy machines to process them in a timely fashion. Instead, voters are sent one clearly printed ballot for each of the available options. The same ballots are also available at the polling station. If multiple issues are being voted on, each issue has its own color-coded and size-coded envelope that will go in its own ballot box, with no chance of unintentionally putting the wrong ballot in the wrong envelope and wrong box, which would be illegal. Each voter goes in an isolation booth, puts his ballot of choice in an envelope, then gets out of the booth and publicly puts the single envelope in the ballot box after his ID is verified and name is checked off by assessors of multiple rival parties. When the boxes are counted, in public, only envelopes containing a single unadulterated unmarked untorn uncrumpled pristine genuine ballot are counted as valid. The process and the criteria it applies are fairly clear, objective, hard to get wrong, and hard to dispute.

In France, ballots are cast in transparent ballot boxes in front of everyone. The boxes stay in full view of everyone until they are emptied and the ballots counted the same day at the same site by many people of all parties. The counts are reported immediately by phone in presence of the assessors, who also sign the report, that can be checked thereafter for each polling station. There is no opportunity for anyone to stuff ballot boxes or insert fake numbers in the counting. There is no counting by "machines" that can be pre-programmed or hacked to cheat. There is no keeping ballot boxes overnight where they can be tampered with. There is no set of privileged people with access to ballot boxes who can do a switcheroo or a stuffaroo.

In France, there are no "mail in ballots", where anyone with suitable access could insert or delete thousands of ballots with no way to assess afterwards the integrity of the process. If for some reason you cannot be present on the ballot day, you can register in advance to give your voting proxy to someone you trust to vote for you. But no one may be delegated more than two proxies, thus closing an obvious venue for massive fraud.

In France, it's the people themselves, not the communist "civil service", that runs the elections with every step along the way checked by many people from many rival parties. The only exception is the one-to-one-to-one correspondence between voters, IDs and polling places, but that's not massively gamable without detection. Therefore, the count of the ballots is widely considered trustworthy by everyone and never contested, while requiring no advanced technology whatsoever beyond opaque envelopes and transparent ballot boxes. French people watch with deep contempt and appallment the baroque, expensive, unfair, seemingly absurd, and completely untrustworthy process used in the USA.

In France, everyone votes on the same day, a Sunday when most people don't work. If somehow you work anyway and cannot take an hour off work to vote, get a proxy. Same day vote means no issue of long chains of custody with ballot boxes. Assessors see and count empty boxes in the morning, see and count the same boxes in the evening as the poll booths close at 8pm. All results are in around 10pm, definitely by 11pm. Actually add a few hours more if you care to include votes from time zones beside metropolitan France, though they seldom sway the results much. In any case, there is no room for massive fraud from a counting process artificially stretched over weeks as in the US.

AND YET, in France, the communists still cheat and still conquered Power, in an irreversible tight grip. It's just that they don't do it by tampering with the count. They do it by completely controlling the schools, the mass media, the campaign finances, the "civil service", and the courts. Thus, they can brainwash people, spread their uncontradicted narrative, defund any opposition, harass any opponent out of being able to afford a living, and fine or imprison the occasional overly active or successful opponent. If people vote "wrong", they will just force a re-vote until they vote "right" at which point the change will be made irreversible (as for the European Constitution).

In the USA, the communists control schools and media, but not so completely that they can totally hush opposing ideas: churches, a few exceptions like FOX, and now the Internet, break their stranglehold. Communists control the Democratic Party, the "civil service" in all cities and at the federal level, but don't control (all) the courts, so can't arbitrarily oppress their opponents. They control public funding, but there is just too much private funding that they cannot control, so they can't just defund their opponents. That is why they resort to tampering with ballots using a system OBVIOUSLY DESIGNED to enable fraud.

What's even more "funny" is that both voter registration and mail-in votes make a mockery of ballot anonymity—and then in modern times, preferences are obvious on social media and via the massive government surveillance. Since anonymity doesn't meaningfully exist, a trivially simple and obviously cheat-proof process would just be to make all votes public and count them, then leave enough time for losers to triple check that it was all legit. So, really, the complexity of the process is not even justified by anonymity as it is in France. (Whether anonymity is itself a good thing or not is another question.)

In the end, you have no way to trust the process. Not only that, it is obvious that SOONER OR LATER the process is bound to be exploited. You can be naive and believe it wasn't exploited YET (but then, you better provide an explanation compatible with the existence of gerrymandering). However you are stupid, evil or crazy (alternatives not exclusive) if you believe it's a trustworthy process the results of which you and everyone else should blindly accept as the basis for Political Sovereignty.

Elections are a sham. Always have been. Always will be. Like France's only serious and honest presidential candidate, ever, said: "If voting could change anything, it would have been prohibited long ago." (« Si voter changeait quelque chose, il y a longtemps que ça serait interdit. » — Coluche)

Slave Reparation Racism

fare — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 12:17:14 GMT

Regarding Slave reparations: About everyone in Europe was a slave (in Latin, "servus" — serf) since Diocletian's socialist "reforms". Emancipation came very slowly through the emergence of free cities, literally the first meaning of "bourgeoisie" — people living free in cities rather than slaves on the land. Only "blue blood" descendants of the conquering German master race who reigned for over a thousand years as "noblemen" can claim to have no slave ancestors. Plus maybe the Swiss. Thus, almost all white people are owed reparations by this standard. From whom, though? Well, most black people in America descend from the tiny minority of slave owners and slave drivers of the time...

Never mind that most "white people" in the US descend from migrants who came well after slavery was abolished in the US. Socialist race-peddlers will have the white family of a recently emancipated russian serf pay reparations to the black family of a malian slave trader just based on the color of their skin. Now who's the racist? The topic of "slave reparation" has only been but a pretense for socialists to raise taxes on whoever may possess anything, to foster parasitism and to create permanent race-based caste divisions. The least logical something, the better they like it. Their ideology of death actively opposes reason.

Emotiology / Émotiologie

fare — Sun, 17 Mar 2019 05:40:54 GMT

People who call for "unity" as the only imaginable solution to violence thereby admit that they are incapable of imagining non-violence towards members of an outgroup. Theirs is the very emotiology of hate they falsely claim to "fight"—because their only vocabulary is violence.

Emotiology—it doesn't even pass the bar of an ideology. There is no claim and no attempt to coherence of ideas, logical principles, or even persistence of opinions. Just opportunistic slogans and fleeting emotions that the masses are supposed to mimic from their elite controlers.

What is "unity"? It's the emotional delusion you feel when LSD prevents your brain from functioning properly, that some deranged or underdeveloped brains can feel without drugs, and that leftists peddle onto the ignorant masses to justify violence against their dissenters.

This emotiology is literally brain damage, spread as a memetic infection of pandemic proportions. My thoughts and prayers go to the victims... oh noes, I caught the infection... tell my wife that I love her!

Ceux qui en appellent à "l'unité" comme seule solution imaginable à la violence avouent par là-même être incapables d'imaginer la non-violence envers l'Autre. Ils cultivent précisément cette émotiologie de haine qu'ils prétendent "combattre"—parce que leur seul vocabulaire est celui de la violence.

Émotiologie—il n'y a même pas là de quoi faire une idéologie. Aucune revendication et aucun effort pour la moindre cohérence des idées, les moindres principes de logique, ni même aucune permanence des opinions. Juste des slogans opportunistes et émotions fugaces que les masses sont supposées singer de "l'avant-garde" qui les contrôle.

Qu'est-ce que "l'unité"? C'est l'illusion émotionelle que l'on ressent quand le LSD empêche votre cerveau de fonctionner correctement, que certains esprits dérangés ou sous-développés peuvent ressentir sans drogue, et que les gauchistes propagent auprès des masses ignorantes pour justifier de leur violence contre leurs dissidents.

Cette émotiologie est littérallement une maladie mentale, qui se répand par une infection mémétique à l'ampleur d'une pandémie. Mes pensées et mes prières vont aux victimes... ah zut, je suis infecté... dites à ma femme que je l'aime!

Rien sans les tas!

fare — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 17:39:07 GMT

Mes amis étatistes sans cesse me demandent comment telle bonne chose pourrait possiblement exister sans les tas (de parasites légaux): l'informatique, les routes, les pompiers, l'école, les chemins de fers, la musique, la charité, etc. Et pourquoi pas l'amour pendant qu'on y est?

Car chacun sait que toutes les bonnes choses sont inventions des tas (d'irresponsables institutionnels). Le summum de l'inventivité est atteint par les adjudants chefs entre deux aboiements d'ordres aux recrues d'une armée d'esclaves, suivis de près par les bureaucrates entre deux siestes.

L'informatique? Elle est née du génie d'un ministre entre deux coïts avec des putes de luxe.

Les routes? Inventées par un bourreau entre deux têtes coupées.

Les pompiers? Inventés par un inspecteur des impôts entre deux contrôles fiscaux.

Et même le sel, fut trouvé par un préhistorique chef des tas (de bandits génocidaires) qui noyait un dissident.

L'école? Inventée par un enseignant public, parce que les millions de fonctionnaires de l'éducation nationale de cette époque reculée s'ennuyaient entre deux vacances, ne sachant pas quoi faire de leur temps grassement payé par les tas (de voleurs impunis).

L'amour? Mais sans les tas, comment aimerait-on? Heureusement qu'un cheminot a eu cette idée, le génie l'ayant frappé juste après qu'il fut nationalisé! (Question: comment les chemins de fers pouvaient-ils même exister avant d'avoir été nationalisés? C'est un des grands Mystères de l'Église des tas.)

Jamais des citoyens libres et responsables ne voudraient ni s'organiser ni dépenser le moindre centime pour des problèmes aussi importants qu'évidents. Ils n'auraient d'ailleurs aucune idée de ces problèmes, laissés ignorants sans le génie des luminaires qui nous dirigent. Et jamais ils n'oseraient agir s'ils devaient assumer la pleine responsabilité de leurs actes, sans pouvoir se cacher derrière un Establishment qui les protège de toute punition pour leurs agissements.

Vivent les tas (de menteurs psychopathes)! Notre Dieu collectif, d'où dérive toutes bonnes choses.

Comme le dit un jour un prophète: « Tout dans les tas, rien hors de les tas, rien contre les tas ! »

La Cigale et la Fourmi

fare — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 07:06:37 GMT

Alors que Véra apprend à chanter ma version de la fable de la Fontaine, le corbeau et le renard, je m'aperçois que je n'avais toujours pas publié l'autre fable que j'avais mise en musique, il y a pourtant de nombreuses années, avant sa naissance. Voici donc la cigale et la fourmi.

Comme toujours avec moi, la chanson suit le texte, avec cependant deux répétitions de vers, pour satisfaire le développement musical. La musique est simple et gaie: son rythme régulier suit les vers à sept pieds (sauf le second à trois), un peu dans le style d'une danse populaire traditionnelle. La chanson change de tempérament avec accords mineurs et autres altérations pour refléter l'attitude négative de la fourmi, mais sans altérer le côté enjoué de la chanson: quand on ne s'amuse pas avec la cigale, on s'amuse à ses dépens.

Voici donc ma version du célèbre "la cigale et la fourmi". Vous pouvez:

Écouter une version a capella (Ogg Vorbis)
Lire les paroles (sur un site consacré à l'auteur)
Imprimer la partition (PDF).
Éditer la partition (Lilypond).

Making ASDF more magic by making it less magic

fare — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 10:47:29 GMT

This short essay describes some challenges I leave to the next maintainers of ASDF, the Common Lisp build system, related to the "magic" involved in bootstrapping ASDF. If you dare to read further, grab a chair and your favorite headache-fighting brewage.

ASDF is a build system for Common Lisp. In the spirit of the original Lisp DEFSYSTEM, it compiles and loads software (mostly but not exclusively Common Lisp code) in the same image as it's running. Indeed, old time Lisp machines and Lisp systems did everything in the same world, in the same (memory) image, the same address space, the same (Unix-style) process — whatever you name it. This notably distinguishes it from traditional Unix build, which happens in multiple processes each with its own address space. The upside of the Lisp way is extremely low overhead, which allows for greater speed on olden single-processor machines, but also richer communication between build phases (especially for error reporting and handling), interactive debugging, and more. The upside of the Unix way is greater parallelizability, which allows for greater speed on newer multi-processor machines, but also fewer interactions between build phases, which makes determinism and distributed computation easier. The upside of the Lisp way is still unduly under-appreciated by those ignorant of Lisp and other image-based systems (such as Smalltalk). The Lisp way feels old because it is old; it could be updated to integrate the benefits of the Unix way, possibly using language-based purity and effect control in addition to low-level protection; but that will probably happen with Racket rather than Common Lisp.

One notable way that ASDF is magic is in its support for building itself — i.e. compiling and/or loading a new version of itself, in the very same Lisp image that is driving the build, replacing itself in the process, while it is running. This "hot upgrade" isn't an idle exercise, but an essential feature without which ASDF 1 was doomed. For the explanation why, see my original post on ASDF, Software Irresponsibility, or the broader paper on ASDF 2, Evolving ASDF: More Cooperation, Less Coordination.

Now, despite the heroic efforts of ASDF 2 described in the paper above, self-build could not be made to reliably happen in the middle of the build: subtle incompatibilities between old and new version, previously loaded extensions being clobbered by redefinitions yet expected to work later, interactions with existing control stack frames or with inlining or caching of methods, etc., may not only cause the build to fail, but also badly corrupt the entire system. Thus, self-build, if it happens, must happen at the very beginning of the build. However, the way ASDF works, it is not predictable whether some part of the build will later depend on ASDF. Therefore, to ensure that self-build happens in the beginning if it happens at all, ASDF 3 makes sure it always happens, as the very first thing that ASDF does, no matter what. This also makes ASDF automatically upgrade itself if you just install a new source repository somewhere in your source-registry, e.g. under ~/common-lisp/asdf/ (recommended location for hackers) or /usr/share/common-lisp/source/cl-asdf/ (where Debian installs it). This happens as a call to upgrade-asdf in defmethod operate :around in operate.lisp (including as now called by load-asd), so it is only triggered in side-effectful operations of ASDF, not pure ones (but since find-system can call load-asd, such side-effects can happen just to look at a not-previously-seen, new or updated system definition file). Special care is taken in the record-dependency method in find-system.lisp so this autoload doesn't cause circular dependencies.

Second issue since ASDF 3: ASDF was and is still traditionally delivered as a single file asdf.lisp that you can load in any Common Lisp implementation (literally any, from Genera to Clasp), and it just works. This is not the primary way that ASDF is seen by most end-users anymore: nowadays, every maintained implementation provides ASDF as a module, so users can (require "asdf") about anywhere to get a relatively recent ASDF 3.1 or later. But distributing a single file asdf.lisp is still useful to initially bootstrap ASDF on each of these implementations. Now, by release 2.26, ASDF had grown from its initial 500-line code hack to a 4500-line mess, with roughly working but incomplete efforts to address robustness, portability and upgradability, and with a deep design bug (see the ASDF 3 paper). To allow for further growth, robustification and non-trivial refactoring, ASDF 3 was split into two sets of files, one for the portability library, called UIOP (now 15 files, 7400 lines) and one for ASDF itself (now 25 files, 6000 lines as of 3.3.2.2), the latter set also specifically called asdf/defsystem in this context. The code is much more maintainable for having been organized in these much more modular smaller bites. However, to still be able to deliver as a single file, ASDF implemented a mechanism to concatenate all the files in the correct order into the desired artifact. It would be nice to convince each and every implementation vendor to provide UIOP and ASDF as separate modules, like SBCL and MKCL do, but that's a different challenge of its own.

There is another important reason to concatenate all source files into a single deliverable file: upgrading ASDF may cause some functions to be undefined or partially redefined between source files, while being used in the building ASDF's call stack, which may cause ASDF to fail to properly compile and load the next ASDF. Compiling and loading ASDF in a single file both makes these changes atomic and minimizes the use of functions being redefined while called. Note that in this regard, UIOP could conceivably be loaded the normal way, because it follows stricter backward compatibility restrictions than ASDF, and can afford them because it has a simpler, more stable, less extensible API that doesn't maintain as much dynamic state, and its functions are less likely to be adversely modified while in the call stack. Still, distributing UIOP and ASDF in separate files introduces opportunities for things to go wrong, and since we need a single-file output for ASDF, it's much safer to also include UIOP in it, and simpler not to have to deal with two different ways to build ASDF, with or without a transcluded UIOP.

As a more recent issue, ASDF 3.3 tracks what operations happen while loading a .asd file (e.g. loading triggered by defsystem-depends-on), and uses that information to dynamically track dependencies between multiple phases of the build: there is a new phase each time ASDF compiles and loads extensions to ASDF into the current image as a prerequisite to process further build specifications. ASDF 3.3 is then capable of using this information to properly detect what to rebuild or not rebuild when doing a incremental compilation involving multiple build phases, whereas previous versions could fail in both ways. But, in light of the first issue, that means that trying to define ASDF or UIOP is special, since everything depends on them. And UIOP is even more special because ASDF depends on it. The "solution" I used in ASDF 3.3 was quite ugly — to prevent circular dependency between a define-op asdf and define-op uiop, I made asdf.asd magically read content from uiop.asd without loading uiop.asd, so as to transclude its sources in the concatenated file asdf.lisp. This is a gross hack that ought to be replaced by something better — probably adding more special cases to record-dependency for uiop as well as asdf along the way.

Finally, there is a way that ASDF could be modified, that would displace the magic of bootstrap such that no special case is needed for ASDF or UIOP — by making that magic available to all systems, potentially also solving issues with cross-compilation. (UIOP remains slightly special: it must be built using the standard CL primitives rather than the UIOP API.) But that would require yet another massive refactoring of ASDF. Moreover, it would either be incompatible with existing ASDF extensions or require non-trivial efforts to maintain a backward-compatible path. The problem is the plan made by ASDF is executed by repeatedly calling the perform method, itself calling other methods on objects of various classes comprising the ASDF model, while this model is being redefined. The solution is that from the plan for one phase of execution, ASDF would instead extract a non-extensible, more functional representation of the plan that is impervious to upgrade. Each action would thus define a method on perform-forms instead of perform, that would (primarily) return a list of forms to evaluate at runtime. These forms can then be evaluated without the context of ASDF's object model, actually with a minimal context that even allows them to be run in a different Lisp image on a different Lisp implementation, allowing for cross-compilation, which itself opens the way for parallelized or distributed deterministic backends in the style of XCVB or Bazelisp. Such changes might justify bumping the ASDF version to 4.0.

As usual, writing this essay, which was prompted by a question from Eric Timmons, forced me to think about the alternatives and why I had rejected some of them, to look back at the code and experiment with it, which ultimately led to my finding and fixing various small bugs in the code. As for solving the deeper issues, they're up to you, next ASDF maintainers!

What is the International Community™? Part 3

fare — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 14:53:37 GMT

"What is the Matrix? Control."

This essay was originally written by Daniel A. Nagy and published on his Facebook page on April 2nd, 2017. It is the third part in a series. The first two parts are available here: Part 1, Part 2. All three parts were originally published on facebook: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

This is the third part in a series. The second part is available here, the first part is available here.

In the first part, I have discussed the so-called Independent Media™, the seeming conspiracy of mass-media workers, especially, but not exclusively journalists, in creating and perpetuating a virtual reality by biased reporting and analysis, serving the interests of the International Community™. In the second part, I have discussed the role of Student Activists™ in doing the footwork and providing a recruitment pool for the rest of the International Community™. I have argued, that there is no need for these people to actually conspire or to be in the service or the pay of some shadowy background power; they are merely following their own perceived interests and their own thirst for power and status.

In this third part, I will look at the other side of the same academic coin:

Liberal Universities™

Their faculty and administration are not only tolerating political activism on campus, but actively encouraging and supporting it, as long as it serves the interests of the International Community™. On one hand, there is nothing new or surprising about the best scientists being in the pay of the most powerful rulers. Similarly, it is quite common for them to provide legitimacy and support for their paymasters. What is new, however, that there seem to be no rulers around. On paper, the best Liberal Universities™ are independent and private, yet, they act as if there was some shadowy background power pulling the strings and showering them with money and prestige, as powerful rulers of the past have done. Well, if you state that much in public, you are only going to make a fool of yourself.

Just like in the case of Independent Media™, academics are actually in the driver’s seat of the International Community™. They do not serve anyone in particular, but exercising and protecting their own power. As it always happens at the nexus of power and science, science suffers. Entire bogus fields of study emerge that have nothing to do with uncovering the secrets of the world using the scientific method and even legitimate scientific pursuits get corrupted by biased funding and publishing. I believe that the root cause for this to go largely unopposed is that division of labor and specialization have deepened so much during the past century that non-specialists came to rely too heavily on academic credentials and KPI’s such as publications in Prestigeous Journals™, which, in turn, are measured by another KPI, the so-called impact factor. This provides cliques of mutual support that cite each others’ papers and also sit on editorial boards of journals with an opportunity to completely capture entire disciplines and even to create new ones, irrespective of actual scientific merit.

When enemies of the International Community™ attempt to mimic its behavior by operating universities of their own or attempting to endow their cronies with academic titles, they invariably fail, often quite comically. Just like in the case with journalists, no matter how much the king pays to the professor, no matter how much money he plows into shiny campuses, it will never be as prestigeous and attractive as a true, independent Liberal University™. The best possible outcome for such attempts is complete capture of the institution by the International Community™ in which case the ruler might have bought himself a temporary, highly conditional (upon unwavering loyalty) peace.

In this light, it is not at all surprising that one of the core tenets of the International Community™, in fact, one of the core Democratic Values™ is that public policy needs to be based on scientific evidence. This is a huge departure from the practice of past rulers who might have paid keen attention to scientist advisors, but would have never given up agency or responsibility by delegating policymaking to scientists. This practice of requiring scientific evidence (in practice: academic approval) for policy decisions utterly corrupts science, for it implies that the only way to influence policy is to influence science. Thus, power is spoken to truth, honest pursuit of science in politically charged fields such as economics or climate becomes impossible.

As any person in the position of power, these academics are, of course, corrupt. Since they have near-absolute power, they are very corrupt, in fact, but also very expensive. This might seem like a weakness, and indeed it is sometimes possible to destroy individual academics by unmasking their corruption, but that may prove very difficult, expensive and dangerous. Going after entire Liberal Universities™ or fields of study, however corrupted, is a surefire way to draw the ire of the entire International Community™.

The true and ultimate weakness of academia is that it is entirely unnecessary and useless in the age of the internet. They hardly do anything useful anymore for anyone but themselves and their powerful friends. If you want to actually learn something, there is no reason anymore to enroll in an accredited degree-earning program, because you can listen to lectures and read papers by the best in any field online, often for free. There is also no reason to pay any attention, as employers, to academic credentials. If you need to hire scientifically trained talent, you can look at results of online competitions, open-source work, etc. If really needed, you should test the applicant in-house on the subject. Remember: the proof of Poincaré Conjecture was not published in a peer-reviewed journal and the Fields medal awarded for it was turned down. The best strategy for freeing yourself and the world from power-thirsty academics with top-notch credentials is to ignore them out of power.

Those who are doing real science no longer need to rely on academic credentials, even if they happen to have them.

Meta-Decentralized Cryptocurrencies

fare — Fri, 29 Dec 2017 14:16:40 GMT

Dear crypto-currency hacker friends,

I had the following epiphany about decentralizing crypto-currency transactions, into a network of repudiable centralized operations with ultimate decentralized arbitration, thereby achieving ledgers with both high-throughput and high-trustworthiness. I would appreciate you helping me find out whether it is original, already well-known, or well-debunked.

A short URL for this proposal is https://j.mp/MetaDecentCC. A longer write-up that gives more details is at http://fare.tunes.org/computing/mdcc2018.html.

The essential innovation brought by Bitcoin was a way to achieve consensus without centralized management. Unhappily, this consensus is technically very hard to achieve, economically very expensive, and it is slow and has low throughput, etc. Centralized systems are much cheaper to operate, much faster, much more reliable, etc.; but ultimately they are subject to failure or abuse by the operator: overcharging or outright censorship of transactions, double spending on their own transactions, inflation, confiscation, outages, gross negligence, etc. A big question today is how much the advantages of distributed consensus can be combined with those of centralized management without also combining their disadvantages.

I was reading about the Bitcoin Lightning Network, OmniLedger, and other proposals to decentralize crypto-currency payments in a safe yet speedy way. Then I was reminded of the notions of (1) Voice and Exit and (2) Slasher-style denunciations. Voice and Exit are the idea, common among libertarians, that what keeps infrastructure managers honest and efficient is mostly not (a) the ability to "Voice" complaints and maybe cast a tiny vote in picking who the next collective manager will be for everyone, but (b) the ability to individually "Exit" the set of customers of your current service provider, or even of all existing service providers, thus becoming your own provider and possibly that of others (extreme case also called "Enter"). Slasher-style denunciations are the idea that if cheating is possible to some parties, these parties can be motivated not to cheat by having skin in the game that they will lose should their cheating be detected and denounced (this idea was first applied to cryptocurrencies by Vitalik Buterin as part of a proposed Proof-of-Stake protocol called Slasher; I heard about it in the Tezos White Paper).

In a crypto-currency, public key cryptography is used so that funds in a public ledger are assigned each to an entry protected by a publicly recognizable lock. Only the actor who knows the matching secret key (typically called Alice) can sign the checks that spend funds protected by a given lock (in some more advanced cases, it can be a set of actors each with many keys, interacting through a "smart contract"). There is no way within the system to cheat by spending funds controlled by someone else: you may crack their computers or torture them to extract their keys; but supposing that their software, hardware and wetware are secure, remote participants in the protocol cannot rob these funds. Inflation and confiscation, two risks commonly associated with phanæro-currencies (currencies that are not crypto-currencies), can also be written out of the protocol at the time it is designed, before it is adopted; or they can be made to follow predictable patterns that users may accept before they adopt the currency, or reject and the currency with it. The main risks that remain in a cryptographic ledger are: (C) censorship of transactions, with includes gouging of transaction fees under threat, and locking or destruction of funds that thereupon cannot be spent anymore, and (D) double-spending of funds by a malicious actor, who promises to deliver the very same funds simultaneously to multiple recipients and run away with benefits received in exchange before the deceived victims hear the news.

Now, notice that both remaining kinds of bad events require a bad actor, typically called Mallory (or sufficiently incompetent one — here as always, any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice). In the case of a centralized chain, the central manager can easily catch small fraudsters and punish them (say by confiscating or destroying their funds); but the central manager may herself become fraudulent, and/or fraudsters will do their damned best to become the central manager (and will eventually succeed). Guarding against these two possible behaviors by Mallory having become the central manager is the one on only (but oh so difficult) purpose of the distributed consensus protocol. If only Alice and her partner Bob could somehow safely let someone trustworthy like Trent guarantee their transactions against small time thieves like Mallory, without Trent himself turning into Mallory! Then they could have very fast transactions at lightning speed, yet that are robust and trustworthy, without a single point of failure or trust.

Therefore, what is ultimately required from the consensus protocol (centralized or decentralized) is a "justice" system that guarantees the right of Exit: if Alice's account is currently managed by Trent who tries to price-gouge her or censor her or otherwise fails to process transactions out of incompetence or dysfunction, then Alice can denounce Trent to Judy, repudiate him as her notary, and either transfer her account to Ted instead, or start her own notary business. (To incentivize Trent not to censor transactions in general and exit transactions in particular, some of the fees associated to the exit transactions would be paid by Trent if the matter reaches Judy, though Alice has to pay at least as much in fees to reach Judy, or else there is an unfair weapon whereby rich operators can pay to bankrupt their competitors with a multiplicative effect.) Once she finds a trustworthy notary willing to record the transaction, Alice can send funds to Bob; and if no notary is willing, Alice can register herself with Judy and self-notarize the transaction; that will be technically more demanding and possibly more expensive due to Judy's fees, but the option is always available, prevents outright censorship or freezing of funds, and sets a cap to how much transaction notaries can gouge before losing all their customers. An additional incentive for notaries to never censor or gouge their customers would be to tie the benefits they receive to the presence of these customers: the ability to charge fees or inflate the money supply (in a limited way); those benefits constitute "skin in the game" the fear of losing which makes a powerful motivator for notaries. (This is another point that Tezos gets well.)

As for the second kind of risk, double-spending, it only happens when Mallory is a notary and signs away the same funds multiple times. When receiving funds from Alice as signed by notary Trent, Bob must make sure to tell everyone about it, and complain loudly and timely to Judy if he hears of a double spending attempt, and wait for long enough that no one else did issue a complaint that Alice and Trent were actually Mallory in disguise who was trying to double-spend. To determine whether a transaction is valid, Bob therefore "only" has to track what the manager Trent said, and wait for Judy to validate what was the (digest of the) official state of transactions notarized by Trent, and check that Judy did not publish a repudiation of Trent by Alice, or a denunciation of Trent's behavior by a double-spending victim. And here's the great advantage of this proposal: it is infinitely faster for Judy to not publish negative messages than it would be for Judy to actually publish positive messages.

To make it costly for Trent to even try to cheat and maybe succeed if there is a glitch in the system, Trent has to put skin in the game by leaving funds under a lock with its name attached. Then, if Trent is otherwise found to have facilitated double-spending, these funds will be lost: half earned by whoever denounced Trent to incentivize denunciation, and half destroyed (Trent could preemptively denounce themselves under a false identity, and avoid losing, if there were no destruction). If Trent himself is not an anonymous node in an anonymized network, but a large well-known corporation with lots to lose should its operations be found to be either fraudulent or incompetent, all the better: more skin to lose in case of either censorship or double-spending attempt, and no ability to profit. And yet if governments try to crack down on such institutions, the ledger can easily fall back a lot smaller servers hiding behind TOR and its rivals or successors. As for regular clients, they can use anonymizing techniques without loss of robustness to the system.

In a degenerate case, there is one very fast high-throughput centralized transaction network, plus a slow low-throughput validation network that keeps it honest and efficient; if and when the centralized transaction network fails, becomes too expensive, or starts cheating, everyone suddenly raises the issue with Judy and moves to a new network; the process may take some time and cost a lot of money, but that these transition costs put a cap on how much the network can suck.

In less degenerate cases, there is a federation of management networks, with fast cheap transfer in-network, and several options of inter-network transfers: go ask Judy to switch notary (slow and expensive but guaranteed), have Trent tell Ted about the transfer, and wait long enough to make sure no one denounced Trent as a double spender to Judy, or if you're in a hurry and/or feeling trusty, pay Faythe, some trusted intermediate with accounts with both Trent and Ted, to do the transfer. When receiving funds from someone you don't fully trust, always wait for Judy to confirm what Trent says. If you must use the services of Faythe, look at how much bail money she left in escrow at various notaries, and decide whether she will want to lose them all so as to indulge in a short-lived spending spree before she gets denounced.

The last issue is: how do you make sure that Judy keeps doing her job, that she is actually listening to denunciations and publishing them, etc., etc.? Well, that's where you need a more traditional Consensus system: instead of being a central authority, which would only push back the issue and leave us with yet another centralized system with extra steps, Judy can be a protocol on top of a decentralized consensus system (or rather THE decentralized consensus system, some of my friends would argue), whether it is based on Proof-of-Work (effective but expensive), Proof-of-Stake (cheaper but more fragile?), or whatever the most trustworthy technique of the day is (today, Bitcoin, tomorrow, the Moon?). Denunciations are therefore published and accepted in a consensual priority order from which the protocol uniquely determines how and in whose favor the ledger is adjusted. Settlement of denunciations would have to have clear precedence and reconciliation rules, which would make the code quite complex, especially since suddenly large swaths of a vastly different blockchain technology has to be made part of the codebase. Ultimately, though, such is the cost of reconciling the advantages of centralized and decentralized: its codebase must contain both the centralized and decentralized systems, plus some code to reconcile the two. If the system has its own decentralized blockchain, early denunciations will be considered as adding sufficient weight to the chain as to make censorship hard; but not in a way that would allow toppling the chain (and thus double spending) using retroactive denunciations.

Note that even when censorship of denunciations somehow happens at the level of Judy, it can become "common knowledge" very soon that certain transactions were fraudulent, at which point the notary disbarred while multiply-spent funds and his bonds are effectively frozen until an uncensored denunciation is published that establishes who gets the reward for proving the fraud. Consensus is only needed to determine who gets the reward, whereas common knowledge is enough to stop people from being defrauded. This in turn means there is little incentive to censor denunciation and positive incentive to publish them. But it also means that people managing serious money should keep listening to consensus-less decentralized chat networks in addition to the consensus. Happily, consensus-less decentralized chat is both cheap and fast. To reduce the incentive for both retroactive cheating (indian giving) and censorship, denunciations can't freeze funds that Judy couldn't prove were multiply spent within the timeout window for a confirmation; but the notary's bond has to remain posted for a much longer time, and is still lost if they were found to double spend. The bond can be made of user subscriptions, that are only released if no fraud was proven for an enter cycle (say one week to one month) after the end of the subscription; if Alice goes to Judy to denounce Trent, and Trent loses the fee he collected from Alice (which causes deflation and/or goes back to a pool that pays miners; Alice does not get the money back, and must pay the miners a fee to invoke Judy.)

I admit that I don't understand the economics of mining enough to say whether my construction can be used with a system that is ultimately cheaper than Bitcoin's Proof-of-Work network at achieving a robust Decentralized Consensus. I would guess that mining costs could be kept proportional to fraud expectation given the suspected (un)trustworthiness of the notaries; but that would mean that fraud would appear when the costs are too much underestimated. Still I do believe my construction manages to combine the throughput of centralized systems with the robustness of decentralized systems, at the same overall cost and latency as existing decentralized systems, and hence much reduced cost per transaction compared to pure decentralized systems, and much improved robustness compared to pure centralized systems. This construction thus uses distributed consensus as an arbiter between competing centralized systems, such that the price paid for consensus is proportional to fraud and/or failure and born by those who are dishonest or make bad decisions instead of being proportional to the active value of the network and born by those who are honest and make good decisions.

Now, please tell me what I have missed, if anything. Is this construction actually robust, or are there flaws I failed to see? Is it original or has someone already proposed it? Even if it basically works, are there hidden costs and issues I have failed to consider?

PS: some of my friends told me that while the specific way I frame this idea might be original, many of the same general concepts are already used in projects to federate blockchains, such as Blockstream Liquid or Ethereum 2.