===================================
 The rest of "A Theory of Justice"
===================================

I have finished reading John Rawls's "A Theory of Justice". As
mentioned previously, it is a good book, perhaps one of the most
interesting ones I have read recently. His construction and
examination of the theory reminded me of the design of distributed
network protocols (the design process itself, that is, while the
structures of political and social organizations are often reminiscent
of those of network protocols), and "correct by construction"
development methodology: its pure procedural justice, intentionally
picking weak assumptions, making up clear and workable definitions,
employing game theory. Unfortunately it also shares with the
distributed systems and the "correct by construction" methodology the
lack of adoption and popular interest, the unclear path towards
increasing those. Yet another parallel is that there are many states
between current situations and the ideal ones: simply federated or
non-profit systems and sensible practices would be nice in networks
and development, as anything resembling a democracy and the rule of
law would be pretty good, demonstrating how far we are from those
currently (but some are closer than others).

It articulates multiple interesting ideas, at least the kinds that are
new to me in works on ethics, such as "reflective equilibrium"
(iterative fitting of principles to match common judgments). Akin to
statistical methods, or nudging the solution to fit the desired
answer. States the "Aristotelian Principle" well ("other things equal,
human beings enjoy the exercise of their realized capacities (their
innate or trained abilities), and this enjoyment increases the more
the capacity is realized, or the greater its complexity"), deducing
(maybe generalizing) that from Nicomachean Ethics; I have both heard
and noticed it in various special cases before, including Aristotle's
Ethics and technology discussions, but this statement itself is
nice. "Justice as fairness" and "goodness as rationality" are
interesting and seemingly useful approaches. And his two principles of
justice (equal liberties and maximin for social and economic
benefits), on which the book is based, along with the "veil of
ignorance". At one point he connects those principles to the
traditional "liberté, égalité, fraternité". Comparison of composing a
moral theory to figuring out a language's grammar is neat (although
perhaps not uncommon as a metaphor for figuring out and arranging
something complex). The argumentation against possibility of
obligation to unjust institutions (including autocratic and arbitrary
forms of government), too.

Among other niceties, Rawls uses a proper definition of socialism:
social ownership of means of production. Not dictatorship, planned
economy, or anything else, as others, including those who should know
better, often do.

The sections on nearly just societies, such as those on civil
disobedience and conscientious refusal, make it clearer how far the
local one is from those. As are mentions of mutual aid when looking at
it from a low-trust society. Or talk of rational people appreciating
liberties, while observing people apparently failing to grasp the idea
of enjoying liberties ("I have nothing to hide" is a common example of
that in context of mass surveillance), arguing against those. Likewise
with the description of people striving for justice, having an idea of
what is right, while observing people arguing for opportunism and
intentionally aligning one's opinions with those of the government for
a supposedly better life. And all the talk about equality kept
reminding me of people discriminating against others, who are likely
to disagree with those ideas. Apparently all those mismatches are not
supposed to be of any notable extent in a well-ordered society,
according to Rawls. One of the arguments he uses is three
psychological laws (chapter VIII, the sense of justice), which do
sound plausible, but I guess one may bring arguments about psychology
sounding equally plausibly to support all sorts of ideas. Though these
are probably better than many others, and perhaps they must be taken
account of by an ethical theory. Maybe I will re-read it someday, and
pay closer attention to these bits, and maybe will also read some of
its criticism (and responses to it, and other books on ethics) before
that.

With major works like this one, I wonder even more than usual how come
that those are not released into public domain (or published under
permissive licenses) by their authors: I imagine the works are written
with the intent to be useful and widely read, likely with that being
prioritized over personal financial profits. Although possibly it has
more to do with publishers requiring exclusive rights, with such
publishing being needed for distribution, especially before the
Internet.


Other news
==========

thunix.net was shut down, the accounts migrated to tilde.club, but the
old addresses should keep working. Both are mostly blocked here,
except for SSH, but noticed that connections to tilde.club freeze in a
strange way: after period of inactivity, a few pockets get through,
but then the packets are dropped. Setting ServerAliveInterval helps to
avoid that. Possibly there is something similar going on with
Discworld MUD WebSocket connections sometimes, but uncertain.

I keep backing up more data, for it to be available despite any
Internet connectivity disruptions: more books, audiobooks (I do not
normally listen to those, and still have not even tried, but possibly
will try in the future), music videos (as both entertainment and
another slice of Western popular culture that is being largely
restricted here), a few website mirrors. Noticed that even
lightweight-looking mostly-static websites often have too many images,
links messed up in various ways, external dependencies, sometimes even
intentionally set anti-bot moats filled with garbage. I was worrying
that a few pictures on my homepage take it from 1 MB to almost 3 MB
(compressed), but that seems fairly small once compared to others.

To ensure my continued ability to make use of those backups, and
taking into account the precarious position of the local currency
(along with my savings), I am once again considering building a new
computer. But possibly will wait more, since the memory (all kinds:
DDR5, both SSD and HDD) is so overpriced these days, due to the
ongoing global memory supply shortage. It is an unfortunate
combination of events, and their causes are quite unpleasant as
well. Though the feeling of both the government and large corporations
creating adverse conditions is recurring. Apparently the shortage is
expected to last for a few more years, and betting on the local
economy to last that long seems risky. So I was thinking of building a
computer with little memory and storage, aiming to extend it later,
but that may lead to a computer initially being even more low-end than
I would otherwise build, and dated later. I used to think that it is
fairly ascetic of me to require just an Internet-connected computer
and some basics for life support, but now both "Internet-connected"
and "computer" become less easily available.

It seems I am stuck (reached a plateau) with most of the physical
exercises, only progressing a little with asymmetrical and diamond
push-ups: started doing those recently, as a progression aiming
single-arm push-ups (unsure whether I will reach those, but this
progression is a way to group and pick exercises). Probably could try
to pay more attention to the diet, and to vary the exercises a little
more, but rather short on spare time. Which may also be related to
continued sleep issues. Those, in turn, I guess I can try to combat by
practicing meditation, restricting news consumption, and generally
relaxing a little; possibly will attempt that soon.

With the recently published Linux local privilege escalation
vulnerabilities, both systemd service sandboxing and AppArmor seem
more useful, preventing their exploitation. I wish more of the server
software packages coming from system repositories made use of
them. Meantime, the silly bureaucratic "security" business at work
continues, in which we are required to call trusted systems
"untrusted" and untrusted but legally mandated systems "trusted" in
formal reports, apparently in line with new lessons in educational
facilities and (dis)information in state-controlled mass media. One
way to protest against unjust and oppressive governments, when other
forms of protest are outlawed, is by slacking and lowering efficiency,
but in cases like the local one, the new regulations themselves demand
to spend time on such silliness instead of any potentially useful
work. Though apparently messed up governments themselves tend to
sabotage their countries' economies more than anyone else can: much of
the work is not simply obstructed by silliness, but redirected towards
various large-scale destructive or otherwise harmful activities.

Finally, a regular brief digest of the information-related and
adjacent local news:

- Reportedly Debian repositories were temporarily blocked on
  2026-04-14.

- There is a moratorium on extending Internet connection channels to
  Europe, signed by ISPs with the Ministy of Digital Development. Once
  over the capacity, they will either drop packets or charge extra for
  foreign traffic (as already being implemented for mobile traffic).

- For the Easter, someone was prosecuted for pictures with an
  improvised hookah made out of Easter bread, for offending religious
  feelings. Along those lines, the local news websites published ways
  in which one should avoid wearing the Saint George's awareness
  ribbon (used to refer to the Victory Day, focusing on a part of
  WWII), which seems to be about as dangerous as mishandling religious
  symbols.

- Mobile Internet in Moscow is disabled again, for the Victory Day
  parade, together with SMS this time. Some news websites publish
  instructions on living without Internet connectivity in the city:
  using cash, offline maps, saved/offline contacts and documents.

- At the Katyn massacre place, there is now "10 centuries of Polish
  Russophobia" exposition by Medinsky (an author of textbooks filled
  with state propaganda for schools and universities). Similarly to
  the recent Gulag museum story, and in line with other tendencies of
  the recent years.

- Government and major commercial online services (mostly websites)
  try to block "VPN" traffic, kp.ru and TV channels claim (at least in
  news titles) that VPNs explode smartphones (which sounds strange
  even in the current local circumstances, but I saw those myself).

- Criminal case statistics disappeared from the Supreme Court's
  website.

- FSB reported that it prevented a terrorist attack on Roskomnadzor
  (the censorship agency) top management by neo-fascists recruited by
  Ukraine, complete with references to Telegram, foreign spies,
  suicide propaganda. A few people were arrested and one killed. Some
  of the arrested were attempted organizers of protests against
  Internet blocking.

- It is prohibited to bring foreign satellite terminals into the
  country now.

- Now there is prison time for illegal cryptocurrency activities, and
  more restrictions on legal ones.

- More prosecutions for activities supposedly related to "LGBT
  movement", targeting books-related organizations again: The Eksmo
  Publishing House director (probably along with other management),
  Nekrasov Central Library director.

- Additional "cybersquads" are organized for even more surveillance
  over children and information that reaches them, yet more propaganda
  and coercion is planned with the help of dedicated youth
  organizations.

But as the usual bright side, the time keeps flowing, so the end of
that approaches, wherever and whatever it is.


----

:Date: 2026-05-09