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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Samizdata quote of the day The internet is only doing to politics what it has done to other industries: it disaggregates elements and then enables these free atoms to reaggregate into new molecules; it fragments the old and unifies the new. So in the end, the internet gives us the opportunity to make more nuanced expressions of our political worldview, which makes obsolete old orthodoxies and old definitions of left and right.
– Jeff Jarvis, Why the internet will revolutionise politics
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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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Unfortunately the old orthodoxies are well entrenched and no amount of bombardment from the internet will shift them. Its all very well shouting about freedom and liberty on the internet but nothing will happen unless we are willing to physically take them back from those who would deny them to us.
Left and right no longer have any meaning anyway, it seems everyone nowadays is a centrist of one sort or another, and all are statists concerned only with maintaining their grip on power.
Mandrill,
The way I discovered Samizdata was by Googling key word combinations to find discussions. When I kept seeing the familiar blue screen pop up, I started looking at the URLs in the Google hits and reading Samizdata discussions first. Eventually I started following current discussions instead of only using the archives. From there I lurked for quite a while before I worked up the nerve to participate.
What happens is that Samizdata is a think tank; a brain trust. These are happening all over the internet. And in true free market fashion, the best adapted will prosper. What is critical for the individualist community is, in addition to having the best theory, to have the best application. Like the linked author says about the blogs “It ain’t Woodstock. It’s just people talking.”
At some point we have to make a move on the ‘real’ world. And I believe that by building and circulating our ideas here, we are at the very least introducing doubt and reason into minds that have only had access to doctrine and dogma.
Individualism, while not usually carrying that exact label, has been expanding prolifically on the internet and consequentially in the public forum.
Also, by virtue of being in neither camp, ‘libertarianism’ is often called on in a role of tie-break or neutral arbitrator. This is one reason why we have influence beyond our declared numbers. When I look at the none-of-the-above profile of the electorates in both of our countries, I am optimistic that when it all comes unravelled (very soon) we will very likely be one of only two groups left standing; the individualists, and the totalitarians. ‘Moderation’ and the middle ground of compromise between these two ideals is collapsing. This should come as no surprise, it never has been stable. We need to be laying the groundwork for bringing as many of the disenfranchised as we can to individualism when this next stage arrives.
Would the American War of Independence and the writing of the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution have happened were it not for pamphleteers, newspaper editors, and philosophical tracts that set the ideological framework for freedom? Shouting about freedom and liberty on the internet is exactly how we will be ready to recover our freedoms and have a workable program to implement liberty effectively when that time comes. Every revolution that takes place in history is preceded by an ideological revolution. Every social system is a product of its ideological climate and culture. Ideas matter and ideas change things.
And stop to consider how the internet has broken the ad nauseum effect of the mainstream media complex that once dominated our culture unchallenged. The media can no longer ram news and stories down our throats and expect us to swallow it without chewing first. Imagine all the stories that would not have been reported in the past but which bloggers and folks like Matt Drudge bring to the forefront of national and global attention. The internet is a powerful new medium that empowers the individual against the establishment. Just as the printing press made it possible for revolutionary thinkers to spread their ideas and change history forever, so has the world wide web.
The thing about the internet is that people tend to find only what they go looking for. They don’t get their sites at random, they put a word into a search engine and look for something specific.
I only found Samizdata through random trawling of the blogosphere (via blogorama or some such thing) I’m an exception, most of the users of the internet are nowhere near as savvy about its power and the depth of information available. Most will stick with what they know, or use it for shopping.
Yes, the internet has broken the strangle hold that the old media had on our information intake but its a two edged sword. Instead of having to put up with what we’re shown we can go out and find what we want, the down side to this is that most people will only go looking for what they want to find and ignore everything else. The danger of this is that people don’t read anything which doesn’t fit with their world view. I find myself watching the TV news just to get a handle on what is happening in the world (I try to see through the propaganda, and I know its there which is something). We are all guilty of it (even if we don’t admit it) I for one automatically filter out any kind of american religious website and skip on to the next random offering until I find something that interests me.
Yes the internet allows for the liberation of ideas and gives people the freedom to find information on an infinity of subjects, but in allowing people to choose their intake so completely the risk is that they’ll miss out on something really important. Then, when their door gets knocked in a 2am and they’re dragged off, hooded, into the night they won’t have a clue why, while we’ll have been out there telling them that its coming for years, they just wont have heard.
The internet is akin to the pamphleteering which preceded the American War of Independence, in all but one important respect. At the time it was done anything written down or printed was considered important, so people read it (or had it read to them). Nowadays we are bombarded by so much useless crap (myspace, Fox News, Big brother and its clones, Channel 5, MTV) that we ignore alot of it out of hand. To have any real effect we need to break through the scum which floats on the surface of this sea of information and bring the message to the people in a way which cannot be ignored or dismissed as more of the dross. I don’t pretend to know how it may be done, but do it we must if we are to be heard by those who need to hear us the most.
It will take 2 generations, after the death of the boomers.
The real world is not a movie or TV show. It takes decades for ideas and trends to play out.
Oh. Like “Liberaltarianism”, for instance?
What fucking gibbering horseshit. Look: the basic political conflict of our time is individualism vs. collectivism. No matter how various pieces are moved around the board; no matter how the furniture is arranged; no matter who dances with whom for the length of one dirge: this basic conflict cannot be cosmeticized into something different or “new” or “unorthodox” or any of the rest of it. The internet is not going to change this.
This is delusion deluxe. It’s simply Jarvis’ net.enthusiasm running away with him, over the boundary of reality.
Pro freedom people were well ahead on the internet and it was looking as if it would be a real alternative to the establishment media (the vast majority of print [especially in the United States] and broadcasting media being in favour of an ever larger Welfare State).
And then the Iraq war came along. And since then pro statism people have been gaining more and more influence on the internet. Certainly Mr Lewis and Mr Soros have been subsidizing them – but mostly it has been hard work by socialist (or “progressive” or “liberal” or whatever term they are using this week) activists.
Let us face the truth. People like “move on” and the “daily kos” are much more effective operations than anything that is facing them (they even directed official Democrat party money to key battleground districts last year) – and it is the Iraq war that has given them their chance. Even things like “google” (which was founded by left of centre people anyway) are easy to manipulate – for example the left make sure that articles (on various subjects) with a slant they approve of are high up on the google lists (by going to the same articles again and again – not to read them, just to get them higher up the lists) so that people see them first when they do a search.
In this and many other ways the left are winning in the publicity conflict.
It was the same with the Vietnam war. People who were opposed to the war (including some libertarians) went looking for organizations that opposed it – and who did they find? They found groups like Students for a Democratic Society (organizations under socialist control).
The real danger is to the apolitical people. They are antiwar (how can they be anything else with all the mainstream media coverage) and they look for organizations that are anti war – and when they find them there is a whole other agenda they get “educated” with.
They start off anti war and then they become pro universal government health care (and everything else on the agenda).
“You would say all this, you were against the judgement to go into Iraq”.
Valid point. But I am not in favour of surrender now the war is on (it has to be won). And I like to think that I would have typed the above even if I had been in favour of the judgement to go into Iraq.
We (by we I mean anti big government people) have to understand how the war has led to us starting to lose on the internet – and we have to understand that whether we are pro or anti war.
Now the left are so powerful on the internet they are not going to go away (even if the war is won).
It is going to be a hard struggle (and require a lot of openness to new ways of doing things) for us to regain the upper hand on the internet – so that people who just go on the net (without a prior agenda) tend to go to anti big government stuff rather than pro big government stuff.
Presently the standard libertarian or conservative way of using the internet is for one person or a small group of friends to set up a blog (or what not) and to dominate it. There is nothing wrong with that – but it is not a way of getting a “mass movement” (something that will turn an election). The left on the internet operate rather differently.
So yes the internet is becomming more important every year as more people go on line.
And yes the internet could help offer a counter weight to the main stream media (especially in the United States).
But this will not help us if the left have the edge on the internet as well.
And we must face the truth – at the moment they do have the edge.
Paul,
Could you follow up more (maybe in an article) on that comment. Particularly how the left is using the net. I have never had the stomach to read enough to study the structure of it.
Midwesterner, Mr A. Clarke has made a special study of the use of the internet by the left. If I were to write an article on the matter I would be treading on his toes – as well as producing an inferior product.
However, as he has given talks (and written briefings) to various individuals and groups on this matter it is time for Mr Clarke to “go public”, the next time we speak I will try and convince him of this.
Thank you. I hope you can convince him.