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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Scaling up one’s beliefs about how individual human nature to a collective, and especially national, scale, is always a dicey business. With the hotting up and late engagement of some Western powers, but not others, in the current war, it looks as though there may be some basis for my long-time suspicion that welfare for nations has many of the same pernicious effects as welfare for individuals.
The specific form of welfare I have in mind are the security forces stationed by the United States in a number of its allies. It is a source of continuing frustration to many Americans that the very nations we have done the most for have, in turn, been the least willing to pitch in with us. However, the reason they oppose us is precisely because we protect them from the consequences of their beliefs. Count on Mark Steyn to crystallize the issue:
More importantly, the prolongation of the American security guarantee has been disastrous for those allies, transforming them into ersatz postmodern allies who require you to engage in months of elaborate diplomatic tap-dancing in order to get them to contribute a couple of hundred poorly equipped troops. There’s a line conservatives are fond of when they’re discussing welfare: What’s better for a man? To give him a fish? Or to teach him to fish for himself? That goes double for defence welfare. The continued US presence in Europe is bad for Europe and bad for the US.
The presence of American troops guarding their frontiers has relieved our European allies, and to a somewhat lesser degree the Japanese and the South Koreans, of the responsiblity of providing for their own national security. As a result, these nations have largely disarmed, much as the residents of major US cities protected by large and visible police forces have disarmed, and the internal politics of these countries mirrors the politics of US urban centers on issues of national/personal security.
Just to pick one area of congruence, European nations believe that it is unnecessary for anyone to maintain a large armed deterrent to attackers, just as urban liberals believe it is unnecessary for an individual to own a gun for self-defense. Because such an armed deterrent is unnecessary, use of it is unjustifiable by either nations or individuals. Thus, armed self-defense is illegitimate, and violent threats to personal or national security are to be met either with more welfare directed at “root causes,” or with jaw-jaw by social worker/diplomats, rather than war-war.
All those readers of this who particularly liked Dale Amon’s reporting of and ruminating upon this, and whose reaction to this was: I want more! … should look at these.
These being, in English rather than pure linkese, a stunning set of photos taken by Richard Seaman of the first flight of SpaceShipOne into space, on June 21st 2004. (My thanks to Joseph Brennan for an email with the link.)
Great as the photos of the various air and space craft are, I especially like the very first photo, of all the people watching it, and of course photographing it. Although I doubt if many of them got photos as good as Richard Seaman’s.
Seaman used a Canon 1Ds digital SLR camera, a snip at $8,000.
Seaman is a fine photographer, but much of the genius of these photos lies in the automatic focus system that this camera has in it. More fuss should be made of the people who devise things like this, I think. Boy would I love one of these – but smaller and for nearer $80, in a couple of years time.
The 1Ds sports the same 45 point auto-focus system as its predecessor, the 1D. Users on the Canon chat group I follow insisted that the auto-focus system is not only effective in achieving sharp focus, it also does so blindingly fast. One story I remember hearing is that if you point a 1Ds and a D60 at the same object at the same time, and someone walks between the cameras and the object and keeps walking, then the 1Ds would refocus on the person and then back on the object, while the D60 wouldn’t react to the person at all!
Ideal for space ships, in other words. Although I recommend a general rootle around Seaman’s photographs. If that appeals, I suggest that this list of recent additions would be a fine place to start.
The animal welfare charity, the RSPCA, wants lawmakers to ban ‘non-official’ firework displays and outlaw sales of fireworks which make very loud bangs, due to the distress this causes to dogs, cats and other animals, including livestock.
Now, it would be dead easy for we libertarians to immediately characterise this sort of thing as the obsession of a bunch of control freaks who want to remove our fun. I can certainly see that point. As a kid, I loved the annual Bonfire Night firework display of November 5, when my dad invariably built an enormous fire at our farm and let off vast numbers of fireworks.
But libertarians are also conscious of the issue of property rights. If I am a dog owner, and I do not want my canine companion to be traumatised by loud bangs coming from my neighbour’s property, can and should I be able to find a way to get the noise stopped? Do repeated loud noises constitute an invasion of my property rights? Or should I be able to make some kind of agreement, perhaps even involving money? For example, the firework lovers could offer a neighbour a cash sum, or offer to take the neighbour’s pets to a kennel home (soundproofed!) for the evening?
Sound ‘pollution’ can be hard to enforce via property rights, but that does not mean it would be impossible to do so. So at the risk of attracting the ire of firework nuts, I sympathise with this particular RSPCA cause, but obviously vastly prefer solutions which mean that enthusiasts of firework displays, both amateur and official, can enjoy a party while their neighbours’ pets are not sent into agonies.
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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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