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]
Instapundit was wont to say that a syphilitic camel could do better. (For myself, I would prefer a camel of good character. 🙂 ) It could decide issues as the ancient Egyptians’ sacred beasts did: put the Republican and Democrat proposals for each contested issue on either side of the sacred way and whichever it walked closer to would be chosen.
Of course, certain Californians would soon arrange that both proposals were Democrat ones, as they do for their primaries. So I fear this theoretically excellent proposal would fail dismally in practice – like the leftist project it was meant to derail.
I recalll reading Jane Goodall’s writings on chimps. They had some ferocious border wars with neighbouring groups of chimps, and a very strong sense of their own territory. There’s no DACA in a chimpocracy, just saying.
About half way through the Ted talk, Ola says “those books that are printed are outdated in a world that changes so fast…” I was very impressed with these two smarter-than-chimp Swedes right up until that comment. The truth is exactly the opposite: while many things printed are outdated or flat out wrong, orders of magnitude more bilge can be found online. Almost nothing online is edited, reviewed, revised after careful thought and testing the way good books are, or at least you can’t distinguish things that have been carefully thought out from the bilge. Of course if you’ve read some books, you have a chance of sifting through it all, but who has the time? Better that there is an up front standard which is one reason I read this blog.
Greg – You might be interested in the open source textbook movement which has the potential to achieve a better balance between quick updating and accurate fact checking.
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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A chimpocracy wouldn’t necessarily be a utopia. After all, wouldn’t the chimps vote for whomever promised the most bananas. 🙂
Good point, SD. It would have to be insane chimps who can’t understand an inducement.
I think New York State is even worse governed than California – but, I admit, it can be argued either way.
Still I have been told to be positive – so I must also say what I think is the best governed American State. I would say South Dakota.
Instapundit was wont to say that a syphilitic camel could do better. (For myself, I would prefer a camel of good character. 🙂 ) It could decide issues as the ancient Egyptians’ sacred beasts did: put the Republican and Democrat proposals for each contested issue on either side of the sacred way and whichever it walked closer to would be chosen.
Of course, certain Californians would soon arrange that both proposals were Democrat ones, as they do for their primaries. So I fear this theoretically excellent proposal would fail dismally in practice – like the leftist project it was meant to derail.
I recalll reading Jane Goodall’s writings on chimps. They had some ferocious border wars with neighbouring groups of chimps, and a very strong sense of their own territory. There’s no DACA in a chimpocracy, just saying.
If chimps had the vote, the wrong lizard might get in.
sortition
About half way through the Ted talk, Ola says “those books that are printed are outdated in a world that changes so fast…” I was very impressed with these two smarter-than-chimp Swedes right up until that comment. The truth is exactly the opposite: while many things printed are outdated or flat out wrong, orders of magnitude more bilge can be found online. Almost nothing online is edited, reviewed, revised after careful thought and testing the way good books are, or at least you can’t distinguish things that have been carefully thought out from the bilge. Of course if you’ve read some books, you have a chance of sifting through it all, but who has the time? Better that there is an up front standard which is one reason I read this blog.
I have always believed that one house of the legislature should be chosen at random and one auctioned off.
Hmmm, chimps vote randomly, and therefore not radically. I like that. If “the centre cannot hold”, we fill it with chimps.
On a purely aesthetic basis alone, that is just a fucking awesome notion.
😆 ^
Greg – You might be interested in the open source textbook movement which has the potential to achieve a better balance between quick updating and accurate fact checking.
@TMLutas
Would they wind up like Wikipedia–hijacked by those who have the most time to, keeping with the chimp topic, throw feeces?