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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On the one hand, she could be deliberately downplaying expectations:
Hopes for the imminent release of 15 sailors and Royal Marines held in Iran were dampened yesterday when Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, urged “caution” over the chances of a swift end to the crisis.
But, and on the other hand, I am reluctant to give this woman credit for any degree of calculation that is not immediately connected to the furtherance of her own career. Let’s just say that nobody seems to have any idea as to how long our hijacked naval personnel will have to continue celebrating Iranian culture. That leaves us only with speculation.
So, who thinks that the RN personnel will be released:
A. Before the end of this month?
B. Before the end of this year?
C. Within 2 years?
D. Within 5 years?
E. Within 10 years?
F. Within 20 years?
G. Never?
After the flight termination a week or two ago, I promised our commentariat I would post information on the problems which caused the second test flight to not reach orbit. A few days ago Elon Musk released this statement:
Post flight review of telemetry has verified that oscillation of the second stage late in the mission is the only thing that stopped Falcon 1 from reaching full orbital velocity. The second stage was otherwise functioning well and even deployed the satellite mass simulator ring at the end of flight! Actual final velocity was 5.1 km/s or 11,000 mph, whereas 7.5 km/s or 17,000 mph is needed for orbit. Altitude was confirmed to be 289 km or 180 miles, which is certainly enough for orbit and is about where the Space Shuttle enters its initial parking orbit.
It turns out that as many of us suspected, there was a feedback between fuel slosh and the control equations:
In a nutshell, the data shows that the increasing oscillation of the second stage was likely due to the slosh frequency in the liquid oxygen (LOX) tank coupling with the thrust vector control (engine steering) system. This started out as a pitch-yaw movement and then transitioned into a corkscrewing motion. For those that aren’t engineers, imagine holding a bowl of soup and moving it from side to side with small movements, until the entire soup mass is shifting dramatically. Our simulations prior to flight had led us to believe that the control system would be able to damp out slosh, however we had not accounted for the perturbations of a contact on the stage during separation, followed by a hard slew to get back on track.
There was indeed a contact of the first stage with the bell of the stage two motor at stage separation and it was indeed not a big thing:
The nozzle impact during stage separation occurred due to a much higher than expected vehicle rotation rate of about 2.5 deg/sec vs. max expected of 0.5 deg/sec. As the 2nd stage nozzle exited the interstage, the first stage was rotating so fast that it contacted the niobium nozzle. There was no apparent damage to the nozzle, which is not a big surprise given that niobium is tough stuff.
The unexpectedly high rotation rate was due to not knowing the shutdown transient of the 1st stage engine (Merlin) under flight conditions. The actual shutdown transient had a very high pitch over force, causing five times the max expected rotation rate.
The vehicle will be launching a satellite on its next flight:
The reason that flight two can legitimately be called a near complete success as a test flight is that we have excellent data throughout the whole orbit insertion profile, including well past second stage shutdown, and met all of the primary objectives established beforehand by our customer (DARPA/AF). This allows us to wrap up the test phase of the Falcon 1 program and transition to the operational phase, beginning with the TacSat mission at the end of summer. Let me be clear here and now that anything less than orbit for that flight or any Falcon 1 mission with an operational satellite will unequivocally be considered a failure.
This is all very good news to the new space industry. There is also supposed to be some more good news this month: Bob Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace, maker of fine inflatable space stations, is supposed to make an important announcement. I suspect it has to do with a next launch date and he may announce he is skipping more intermediate tests or perhaps even an early anchor tenant for an operational station… if we were to speculate even more wildly.
All of us in ‘the biz’ will be watching closing.
They say that the western liberal cosmopolitan establishment is itself a fanatical, depraved belief system. I like it when they say this because it makes me feel as if I have a belief system.
– Jon Ronson, in his preface to THEM: Adventures with extremists (2000)
For those of us whose beliefs are defined negatively, by our skepticism, by what we do not think institutions are entitled to do to people, then it might sometimes be a comfort to be told this amounts to a system. I think I have a system of procedure, rather than fixed substantive beliefs, however. So I know what Ronson means (and I am developing a comradeship for liberal cosmopolitans of all sorts), I recognise the feeling of affirmation in being marked out as a fanatic by the enemies of civilisation – but I do not like it. The idea that I might have a ‘belief system’ categorically equivalent to that of the conspiracy theorists and theocrats makes me feel queasy.
I am quite a fan of the fiction and some of the non-fiction of Ayn Rand, but I am the first to concede that some of the people who call themselves Objectivists are an assorted bunch, to put it politely. I have little time for some of the “official” Big-O Objectivists, like Leonard Peikoff, although I enjoy the writings of Tara Smith very much. The group of folk who liked Rand’s broad ideas but detested the narrow-mindedness and paranoia of some of the “official” group broke off, under the leadership of Dr. David Kelley, to form groups like The Objectivist Center. I like the TOC crowd and have corresponded with a few of them. I subscribe to The New Individualist, the monthly journal edited by the great Bob Bidinotto. What is so refreshing about it is that one does not get lots of shrilll lectures or dense philosophical treatises, but an engaging and assertive writing style coupled with an often impish sense of humour and enjoyment of the good things in life. It is a cracking read, in fact. Bob is also addicted to thriller novels, which puts him in the same bracket as me.
Okay, enough creeping from me, now for the nasty part. In the April print edition – the web version does not appear to be up yet – there are two articles that struck some decidedly jarring notes. The first, by Roger Donway, argues that basically, the late Milton Friedman was not a good advocate of capitalism and individualism, and in fact he used arguments that play straight into the hands of socialists. (I am not making this up). The second article, by Bidinotto, includes a defence of the use of torture in ’emergency’ situations, although Bob does not define ’emergencies’ very clearly and leaves begging the question about who gets to decide such matters. But I have pretty much argued on this torture issue before and will not repeat myself here. So I will focus instead on what Roger Donway has to say about Friedman.
To try to make this point, Donway argues that Friedman’s attack on the idea that firms have “social” responsibilities itself rests on a sort of utilitarian basis. Does it?
→ Continue reading: Sometimes, even a superb magazine gets it very wrong
Over the weekend, news got out – thanks to the diligence of journalists at The Times (of London) that UK finance minister Gordon Brown was warned back in 1997 that removal of tax relief on pension funds’ equity dividends would create a massive future problem. It did. More than 5 billion pounds a year have been snatched from corporate pensions as part of Brown’s tax-and-spend binge over the past 10 years. Tens of billiions of pounds have been taken from pension schemes, forcing firms to shut down the final-salary pensions and significantly reduce the likely benefits people will get in retirement. Of course Brown cannot be entirely blamed for this. We live longer, and the fall in the stock market in 2000, and the sharp rise in the cost of bonds, hit pension funds hard. But Brown did a huge amount of damage. His tax raid aggravated the stock market losses, and by forcing firms to steer more money to schemes, hit investment and growth. He has not expressed one whit of regret, and now, exposed as the dogmatic man that he is, Brown’s lickspittles are now lying about the arguments put to them at the time by big business groups such as the CBI. Former CBI Director-General Adair Turner, a decent man, has called the government a bunch of liars. It appears that the CBI and other groups, supposedly charmed by the recent cuts to corporation tax, but also realising that smaller firms got clobbered by the March budget, are furious at the Treasury’s dissembling on the pension tax issue.
Brown’s chances of becoming Prime Minister took a palpable hit this weekend. The gloomster may still be in 10 Downing Street by the end of this summer, but at least the British electorate have had another chance to see what a devious and foolish man Brown is.
The broader implications of all this should be obvious to regular readers of this site. By undermining private sector pensions and long-terms savings, Brown and his supporters increase reliance on the state, much in the same way as David Lloyd George and others torpedoed the Friendly Societies in the first decade of the 20th Century by his pension and welfare changes. (There is some debate on whether Lloyd George was aware of the effects of his actions). Aneurin Bevan, that over-rated demagogue of the 1940s, deliberately shafted the independent, non-state medical services that had already began to serve Britons, including poor ones, before the Second World War. Wherever one looks, one sees evidence of socialists/so-called liberals acting to wreck patterns of private privision or non-state mutual support. It is shameful, and the consequences for civil society are immense.
Just think of how, had the Friendly Societies and the rest been allowed to flourish. We would now have a broad and deep savings culture, enormously strong, and underpinning a culture of self reliance and personal responsibility. And people like Gordon Brown, never performing an hour of honest toil outside the halls of government, destroyed it.
If you enjoyed the You-Tube video which Thaddeus pointed out, you can find the main track and much more at the band’s web site: Stuck Mojo Media.
As I spent a good chunk of my life on the bottom end of the music business I know what life there is like. Let us just say I never gave up my day job.The cost of instruments, equipment, recording, new strings for each major gig and not to mention the bar tab… make a musicians life a tough one. Even if you do have the day job to live on, you spend your life in deep levels of sleep deprivation. The only thing which keeps you going is the buzz you get from the audience. Please show these guys your gratitude by buying their music or putting something in their tip jar.
Do your part to make sure they can keep doing what they are doing!
The EU is going to ban ordinary lightbulbs because we are making the wrong choices and not buying the energy efficient ones. And who’s to blame for poor sales of the more efficient ones? The EU.
Movies have consequences:
“Iranian commentators are mainly angry, defending Iran’s action,” the e-mail said. “The reason for that is a) UK does not have a good/positive history in Iran b) Persians have been treated badly by Westerners e.g. in the movie 300 or referring to Persian Gulf as simply Gulf or Arabian Gulf, so now having the poor young sailors captivated by Iran, many Iranians feel proud!!!!!!”
Now what are the chances of Ahmedinejad changing his name to Xerxes?
The British government has issued a formal apology for Britain’s conduct during the Second World War.
Speaking from the House of Commons, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett described Britain’s conduct in the 1939-1945 period as “shameful”:
We recognise that British military aggression between the years of 1939 and 1945 led directly or indirectly to the deaths of many, many people in Europe, Asia, Africa and elsewhere. It is time to acknowledge this fact and to apologise for it.
The opposition Conservatives roundly condemned the Foreign Secretary’s remarks as not going far enough and being “too little, too late”. They urged the Government to issue a further apology for all the environmental damage inflicted on the world by British forces during the war and since.
In Germany, a spokesman for an association of SS veterans described the apology as “a good start”.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has increasingly wielded its regulatory powers in recent years, as infertility treatments have become more common and diverse. Some of the regulator’s decisions have been criticised as arbitrary or inappropriate, using an ethical calculus to coerce parental choice when it is not required. Their latest intervention is controversial, though based upon clinical outcomes.
At present, multiple embryos are implanted in the womb to increase the probability of a successful birth. This has potentially undesirable consequences if the health of the mother or the children is impaired. Studies have monitored infertility treatments and demonstrated these drawbacks.
Half of the mothers of IVF twins give birth prematurely and the babies are below the minimum ideal birth weight of 5lb. They run a much higher risk of dying, lung and heart problems, having cerebral palsy or developmental difficulties and facing chronic conditions as adults. Many spend time in special neonatal care units in hospitals. Mothers who conceive more than one baby after IVF are far likelier to suffer a miscarriage or dangerously high blood pressure than women who have one child naturally.
This should be viewed as additional information that clinicians would take into account when advising their patients and making a diagnosis or a recommendation. If the regulator had drawn attention to these studies and noted that inspectors would wish to see these taken into account during diagnosis, no observer could criticise such diligence. However, we live in New Labour Britain, home of targets and micromanagement:
Shirley Harrison, the HFEA’s chair, will this week defend the decision to put medical safety above the rights of childless women to choose how many embryos are transferred. She will cite research showing that having just one embryo implanted does not reduce a woman’s chance of conceiving.
Doctors will retain the freedom to use their clinical judgment to decide if a woman rated a ‘poor responder’ to fertility treatment should still get two embryos. Clinics will be told to reduce the number of multiple births through IVF over time from 25 per cent to somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent.
This is a decision that should rest between the doctor and the patient. If the patient is aware of the risks and responsibilities, they may then take the difficult decision required in this matter. It is not up to HFEA to usurp clinical practice and private judgement in this matter.
There has been a bit of a backlash against what might be called the “self-esteem” movement in psychology and education in the United States and elsewhere. Here is an item. It is certainly true that a lot of intellectually vapid rubbish has been written about this. For a lot of the time, it seems, “self-esteem” is nothing more than a desire to be freed from judgement, hard work and effort.
I think there is a danger that in the backlash, that the baby gets chucked out with the bathwather, however. If you think about it, self-esteem is about the idea that as human beings, we are both competent to live and worthy of achieving happiness on this earth. This has nothing to do with a vague, dope-induced “feel-good” sort of sentiment, but is something quite different. Achieving happiness and believing that one is deserving of that is often quite hard. In a culture soaked in guilt about material wealth, where people are constantly told to feel bad about prosperity and “selfish individualism”, it is actually quite gutsy for someone to stand against all this. If one thinks about it, self-esteem, properly understood, is a key component of the idea of human rights. If people are entitled to pursue happiness and the good life, then they need rights to protect and advance that.To believe in the idea of the sovereign individual, one has to believe that individuals are competent to decide their lives and also worthy of such. And a self-confident, happy and proud person is surely what a healthy, liberal civil society needs. I fear that a lot of the people now bashing the self-esteem movement are not just sensible skeptics about the latest fads to come out of academia, but also collectivists and authortarians who fear what might happen if people really do want to pursue happiness and self-fulfilment.
This classic on self-esteem is always worth a read, by Dr. Nathaniel Branden. And let’s not forget the important Victorian tradition of “self improvement”, starting with the great Samuel Smiles’ Self Help, which is much more than just getting seriously rich. There is a lot of chaff out there, but a lot of wheat as well.
The next time you read someone denounce the United States as a haven of unfettered capitalism, read this story and similar ones like it. It is a reminder that the cause of free trade has been on the back foot in the United States for some time.
Regardless of one’s feelings about the dark side of China – its dreadful human rights record, for starters – to slap tariffs on the country’s imports to buy a few votes from special interests in the US will come at a high price for future global economic growth and at a cost to US consumers of products like paper, steel or electronics. Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations over 230 years ago. One might hope that his lessons would have sunk in by now.
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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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