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 Emotion-based appeals not only allow politicians to avoid the far more difficult business of rationally and politically justifying themselves and their policies to the electorate — they also help to disguise the character of measures that would be a very hard sell indeed if they were made explicit. The UK government’s declared target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, for example, apparently feels so good that others have sought to heighten the sensation by declaring a 2030 or 2025 target. The harsh realities of immiseration, upheaval and austerity that meeting such a target would entail, however, are unlikely to be spelled out openly in any election manifestos.
– Philip Hammond (no, not that one, a different one)
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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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If I buy them all a comfort dog, will they go away?
On pre-industrial terms, c 14th century, the carrying capacity of the UK is perhaps 3 to 5 million people.
And the other 65 million?
bobby, no. Use the $ to buy me a comfort dog. I promise not to turn it into a vegan. :>)
Maybe an emotional support velociraptor.
Agreed, but grand political promises which go beyond the next election cycle are essentially worthless. Remember the subsidised rates for solar / wind power generation from the home? As soon as that started costing serious money because the virtue signallers in the middle classes started getting into it (rather than relatives of the PM), then rates were cut and all the promises of subsidies that were used to justify the financing of these rather expensive systems were repudiated.
This is not to say that stupid people who actually believe government promises shouldn’t lose their shirts…
You can push the plebs only so far and when the eco-lunacy bills start to seriously impact their standard of living then they will be out on the streets as they were in France.
How’s that for a Marginal Revolution?
The average voter is so ignorant and misinformed about virtually every subject touched by government policy that a statement of honest facts and goals would sound like conspiracy theory gibberish to most people because the nonsense in their brains cannot be connected to this reality. There is a reason politicians are not honest and the reason is us.
Surely, that should be…
The average
voterpolitician is so ignorant and misinformed about virtually every subject?
Based on the frequency politicians are caught objecting to something they’ve not read or understood.
I think I have said it before, and especially so in the context of British politics. Is it not ironic that the very people who have spent the past ten years demanding an end to government austerity programs are now demanding the start of green austerity programs?
I think if we could reframe the debate that way it would have a very different political response.
Not even funny anymore:
https://nypost.com/2019/10/23/devine-eco-madness-may-be-reason-for-disastrous-boeing-737-max-safety-issues/
“You can push the plebs only so far and when the eco-lunacy bills start to seriously impact their standard of living then they will be out on the streets as they were in France.”
This is my argument as to why the eco-freaks can be largely ignored – once their virtue-signalling is in any way translated into practical policy thats starts taking stuff away from people, then the sh*t hits the fan, both on the streets and at the ballot box, and the eco-nonsense stops.
Thats the problem the greens have – its not like traditional socialism, where you can always promise to tax someone else, and give the spoils to a favoured % of the public in return for their votes, with the water-melons they have to impose the pain on everyone, pretty much equally. In fact rather regressively as the effects of higher prices for everything hit the poor harder than the wealthy. I can’t think that any party is going to get far in elections with a stated policy of ‘Vote for us, and we’ll make your life harder’, so thats why in my view it will never happen.
Alisa, that is a horrible, horrible story (as always, IF true — necessary disclaimer these days).
It needs to be publicized far and wide.
Grail Quests have not so far produced the Holy Grail. [Cf. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. — — Good movie, though.]
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Also: Once again, carbon is not carbon dioxide. People simply do not understand the importance of using words correctly and not using shortspeak to erase inconvenient differences. And carbon dioxide is not a danger to anyone’s health except in extraordinary circumstances, nor a pollutant in any proper sense of the word. If I wanted to do in an in-law I would pipe carbon MONoxide into his hermetically sealed bedroom (with him in it); to do in the planet, let me recommend installing a death-ray on the Moon, pointing it at Earth, and clicking the SEND button.
—->Or leaving public policy in the hands of enviro-nutters, race hustlers (for all values of “race” including but not limited to “white,” “brown,” purple with pink spots, Patagonians, scientists, anti-scientists, men, and women), and other Useful Idiots and knaves.
Boeing’s MAX737 was indeed designed for fuel economy. But the purpose was not [mainly] CO2 reduction. Burning less fuel means money saving – in fuel costs. In an area where competition is fierce that is a big advantage.
All the talk about it’s “greenness” or environmental advantages is just empty, fashionable sales talk, that was appended. It’s the cost reduction that counts, and made Boeing design and produce the faulty MAX.
So, asserting that the eco-madness caused the MAX737 catastrophe is nonsense.
I entirely agree with the quote. I think Jim is right in his assessment and very much hope so. In the meantime though we have to put up with an endless amount of ill informed or outright delusional nonsense from green zealots and an approach to them from the MSM that is either actively supportive or tolerant and uncritical. It gets depressingly wearing.
Jacob @ 9:19 has it right – this is less about green virtue-signalling than it is simple economics. If a plane burns less fuel it is cheaper, and thus so are tickets. Margins are very fine and fuel costs are important. As much as I loathe the green lobby, the economic argument is far more persuasive.