We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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When one objects to something, it is important to have a clear idea exactly what you are objecting to and why. Fleet Online is a company offering an inexpensive way to track the location of someone else’s mobile phone to within 50 yards in an urban area. The system has built in safeguards that prevent someone tracking someone else without their permission (a text message is sent to the target phone notifying them of the ping and asking if they are content to be located. Also certain times in which being located is acceptable can be set up as a preference).
I have no problem with companies keeping track of their employees whilst they are on-the-job… for example the advantages to a courier company and their clients are too obvious to need elaboration. I don’t even have much of a problem with parents keeping track of their children. Like so much in the world, this ability to track one of the increasingly ubiquitous tools of modern life is not intrinsically good or bad in and of itself. The problems I foresee spring from the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act in Britain and the various equivalent powers of state found in many other nations. Almost certainly there will be a requirement for services like Fleet Online to allow the state to locate people without their permission and under the various provisions of the aptly names RIP Act, notifying the target they are subject to state scrutiny will itself be a crime.
When the RIP Act was first imposed, it was with assurances that access to private information like e-mail, ISP activity records and even decryption keys1 would be tightly controlled and limited to only a few essential key government agencies. Of course it did not take long for the state to try and expand the list of people who can get access to your private internet traffic details to essential key government agencies like local town councils, the Department of Health, the Environment Agency, the Food Standards Agency, the Postal Services Commission, and Fire Authorities. Previous assurances as to who would have access proved to be worthless and the people who uttered them straightforward liars. No real surprises there to any but the credulous. So does anyone seriously want to trust the same people with the ability to track not just your online life but your physical movements in the real world at the click of a mouse?
Technology is not the problem… the problem is a state with takes such power to itself with little more than an imperious demand to its subjects to ‘just trust us’ and ‘if you are not guilty, you have nothing to fear’.
1 = or more accurately the decryption keys of those ‘criminals’ who did not have a completely corrupted floppy disc to surrender on demand ‘on which their key codes are stored’. Corrupted you say? No! Really? Well I never. I guess I’ll never be able to access those files again… and nor will you.
The war against Canadian drugs has caused the RCMP in Newfoundland to want to make the purchasers of cellphones present ID, including a photo, when they buy them.
Sgt. Greg Smith says officers have a hard time investigating some drug dealers because they can buy many phones and remain anonymous.
Whatever next? Buying a phone without being anyone in particular. It has to stop.
One recent investigation lasted more than five months and cost more than $100,000. Police say it was because the suspect used 11 different phones, none of which was in his name.
The police want to be able to monitor the calls and find out who’s on them. That’s easier when people are using regular telephones that have known owners and fixed addresses.
Stores don’t require the name of a cellphone purchaser.
Retailers say they have no reason not to sell phones to anyone who can afford one, and they’re under no obligation to ask for identification.
Funny how tradesmen threatened with a change in the law just announce that the existing law is whatever it is, as if that is, in and of itself, an argument for it to stay like that. They point out that as the law stands they’re not breaking it, so they’re law abiding, so … well, so, they ought to be able to carry on doing like they always have, what with them being so law abiding and all. It’s almost as if they think that no one’s allowed to change a law until the existing one is being universally broken. Idiots.
On July 21st, 1969 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin returned from the Moon after joining up with Michael Collins who had orbited overhead.
The last man set foot on the moon a few years later. All the hard work and miraculous efforts of thousands of dedicated scientists and engineers was thrown into the dustbin of history. World experts on esoteric science and engineering fields were fired and drove taxis to feed their families.
This is what happens when you place your faith in the State.
Photo D. Amon all rights reserved
Down load and play this song (vocals Julia Ecklar, words and music Bill Roper)
If you still don’t understand then you have no soul and I can’t help you.
Once again the xenophobic and unilateralist French government displays its arrogant and dismissive attitude towards the international community:
France is saying goodbye to “email” and hello to “courriel” – the term that the linguistically sensitive French government is now using to refer to electronic mail in official documents.
The culture ministry has announced a ban on the use of the word email in all government ministries, documents, publications or websites, in the latest step to stem an incursion of English words into the French lexicon.
We should protest against this vulgar attempt to pursue their own narrow and selfish national interests. Let’s flood them with e-mails.
Given its intimate association with brutal and murderous ‘ethnic cleansing’ it is entirely understandable that the term ‘population transfer’ raises more than a few hackles.
But it need not necessarily be something to fear. Provided it is thought of in terms of free trade, then I can see a peaceful and voluntary process of population transfer as a beneficial thing.
Indeed, the process already appears to be underway:
A husband and wife in Minnesota, a college student in Georgia, a young executive in New York. Though each has distinct motives for packing up, they agree the United States is growing too conservative and believe Canada offers a more inclusive, less selfish society.
“For me, it’s a no-brainer,” said Mollie Ingebrand, a puppeteer from Minneapolis who plans to go to Vancouver with her lawyer husband and 2-year-old son.
Nor are these itchy feet to be found exclusively in the USA. There are people in Britain too, like this correspondent to the Guardian (concerning the death of Dr.David Kelly), who see Canada as the ‘Golden Medina’:
I think he HAD TO BE RUBBED OUT. He knew too much, where the bodies were buried, so his had to be buried as well. Maybe you’re more honest than we are: the media and the government are co=conspirators here. So good luck. I”m moving to Canada, land of the free.
Some may see this as a tragedy but I see it as an indirect means of slashing public spending. Surely it is preferable for all these guardianistas and tax-consumers to converge upon one country where they can stew in each other’s misery rather than staying where they are, demanding entitlements and whining interminably about the unfairness of it all. Together, they can truly build the kind of society they want to live in.
Of course this process need not, and should not, be a one-way street. Canada has no shortage of ambitious, hard-working people who might see their futures as somewhat sullen in the Land of the Puppeteers. The easiest solution is for them to pack their bags and head off to less stultifying climes where their talent and energy will be both appreciated and rewarded.
In fact, that is what loads of Canadians have been doing:
But every year since 1977, more Canadians have emigrated to the United States than vice versa — the 2001 figures were 5,894 Americans moving north, 30,203 Canadians moving south.
Quite what this means for Canada in the long run I dare not even imagine but for the rest of us it can only be good news. Carry on, I say.
[My thanks to the Brothers Judd for the link and to Peter Cuthbertson for the Guardian letter.]
An urgent memo to the people whose job it is to monitor so-called ‘greenhouse gases’: there appears to be more than enough hot air over Central Europe to keep the Kyoto balloon aloft:
Russia came under pressure from the European Union at the weekend to ratify the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gases, amid fears that Moscow’s commitment may be wavering.
Yes it is probably ‘wavering’ because the Russians (in common with everybody else) know that the Kyoto Protocol is a bad idea which has been touted as the solution to a non-problem. If the Russians have got any sense they will consign the whole boondoggle to the shredder.
The protocol, which is backed by the EU but opposed by Washington, needs the support of the Russians to reach the threshold of backing required for it to come into force. Although Moscow announced last September that it would ratify, it has so far failed to do so, raising fears that the entire international effort to combat climate change could be stalled.
The keyword here is ‘fear’. Not fear of environmental catastrophes or other such fantastic nonsense, but a (justified) fear among Europe’s political elite that their dirigiste economies will not be able to compete in a truly global marketplace.
Altero Matteoli, the Italian Environment Minister, called for enhanced cooperation with the US and Russia, as well as with emerging economies,such as India and China.
‘Cooperation’ is a euphamism for ‘submission’ and what Mr.Matteoli and his ilk require is for potential competitors to hobble themselves with pointless and damaging regulatory burdens that slap a lid on industrial and technological development. The only other method of halting decline is root-and-branch reform of the Europe’s stagnating economies and that is not going to happen.
Kyoto is not about ‘saving the Earth’ or ‘improving the quality of life’ or any other enviro-mentalist nostrums. Kyoto is a deeply dishonest contrivance; a device for propping up an arcane and protectionist ‘old’ Europe.
Since September 11, 2001, travellers to the United States have readily accepted that a few more checks and questions are the price they have to pay for safety. But is security turning into surveillance? Michael Kerr reports.
Since September 11, 2001, we have all become readier to yield up our freedoms for what we hope will be greater security. But we should not forget the words of that great American statesman Benjamin Franklin: “They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
A great many articles have been written on Samizdata.net about the monstrous Tony Martin case (just do a search for “Tony Martin” and you will see what I mean). I have always thought that he was convicted more for challenging the state’s monopoly on force by defending his property rather than for actually killing a man.
Well even the faint fiction of the Tony Martin case being a simple matter of criminal justice (which has come to mean justice for criminals) has been abandoned. The fact he was not going to be released early is old news… the demented fact this was because he was deemed a danger to burglars is also old news.
What is new was revealed in a Telegraph article yesterday (emphasis added):
Ms Stewart [a probation officer] has previously written a report on Martin which was submitted to the Parole Board before its ruling in January. In it she said that Martin’s support base in the country had made him more likely to reoffend.
“This is a case which has attracted immense and ongoing media attention and public interest,” she wrote. “I believe this has had an impact on Mr Martin’s own perceptions of his behaviour and his right to inflict punishment on those whom he perceives to be a threat to his own security.
In short, because he has widespread support from other people who believe he has been shafted by the system, lots of support, in fact political support, he is not going to be released. Ergo, he is a political prisoner. How else can one interpret it given the reason for his continued detention is due to the support of other people?
And let us not forget the other reason: he refuses to repent his ‘crime’ of perceiving two men breaking into his isolated country home as a threat to his security. Martin does not just have the temerity to demand he has the right to defend his own property, he refuses to apologise for doing so.
At the end of many articles I have written on Samizdata.net I have used the words “The state is not your friend”. Probation Officer Ms. Annette Stewart is the perfect embodiment of why I make that sort of remark. She is just acting in accordance with the institutional imperatives within which she works. The system is not just broken, it is insane.
As an aspiring student of liberty, I’ve read some books, such as Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty, which sorted out complex conceptions I’d previously struggled with, and read other books, such as Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which just blew my mind straight out of the water. But in my quest for classical liberal enlightenment, over the past five years, I’ve had the occasional good fortune to stumble across a few rare gems which have cracked open both nuts.
These rare and concise works of genius have crystallized my ragged thoughts and exploded them into a dagger-sharpened clarity, to achieve, for me, a double-whammy Wow effect.
You may have enjoyed some of these masterpieces, yourself, such as Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson, Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, and Von Mises’ The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality. I see the world through a far clearer lens, after having read these paradigm shakers, than I ever did before, through an unformed fog of Platonic statism.
Socialists, particularly, hate these books. Because to read them, and to understand them, is to reject socialism’s own evil hate-filled religion. And if we were to let these red Borg force their nauseous European super state upon us, these books would soon get jettisoned onto their mass tribal bonfire. But which one would get tossed on first, in a square, in Berlin? There can only be one. And I think I’ve just read it. → Continue reading: The late late book review
One reader complains that he could never see why we use the word ‘service’ for public monopolies such as health, education, the post office (and even the ‘civil service’) when they deliver such rotten products.
Then a local farmer mentioned he was getting a bull in to service his cows. After that, our reader recognised that it was actually a pretty good way to describe the relationship between public producers and the taxpayers who have to fund them.
– Eamonn Butler, Adam Smith Institute
On his culture blog, Brian Micklethwait provides a reference to a preview of an American television program about the reactions of the muslim world to a perceived onslaught of American television and movies, and how they are perceived by many as “overt propaganda created to undermine their religious and cultural identity”, and yet that at the same time, people love to watch them.
Brian has some has some wise thoughts on the subject himself, and concludes by observing that inevitably the culture must move in two directions.
But all will eventually be well. They’ll make their own shows, that satisfy their young, but deflect the complaints of the complainers.
And then we’ll watch their shows too.
This all invites questions about just how cultural programming – television and movies – propagates around the modern globalised world, which is ultimately much more interesting than simply “America is trying to dominate the world with its propaganda”. It’s both simpler and much more complex. For one thing, American programs are not meant as overt propaganda, and they are certainly not aimed at the Muslim world. Hollywood is trying to make money, and that is all. The Muslim world is such a small market that Hollywood is essentially not paying attention at all, and this is even more so in the case of television than in the case of movies.
For there is a huge difference in the overseas reception of American television and American movies. American movies dominate the box office everywhere pretty much without exception. Local movies have a much smaller market share than American movies virtually everywhere, and Hollywood is selling the same movies to the entire world. Hollywood movies today make more money outside the US than they do inside the US (almost all of which comes from Europe and East Asia), so Hollywood is very conscious of what foreign audiences will want to see when making movies. Often this leads to what may be described as “lowest common denominator” film-making. Movies containing lots of explosions are popular everywhere. (Comedies travel far less well, which is why Hollywood makes fewer of them than it used to, and is why they have smaller budgets). However, rather than turning movies into “overt propaganda”, this tends to make movies bland. American film production does interact with the rest of the world, but in a slightly less direct way. Hollywood has a ferocious appetite for talent. Anything good that is done by filmmakers in the rest of the world tends to get co-opted by Hollywood. If audiences like Hong Kong style action sequences, then these will find their way into American film. The people making the films in America will often be the same people who made the ones in Hong Kong, working in Los Angeles and being paid far more (and working shorter hours) than was ever the case on the other side of the Pacific. When a film financed by a Hollywood studio but made by a Hong Kong filmmaker and filmed in Canada is shown in Spain, it’s a bit hard to tell just whose culture is being influenced by what. (I will be intrigued to see what happens when Iran becomes less oppressive, and some of the country’s many talented film-makers get the opportunity to make films in Hollywood. The thing stopping this is the political situation in Iran and certainly not that in Hollywood.)
The propagation of American television is totally different, although the final conclusion is perhaps the same. → Continue reading: Movies, Television, and Globalisation
Welcome to Samizdata.net, a place where reality gives us an unfair advantage.
– Brian Micklethwait
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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