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 – a new rent-seeking class “How many environmental justice majors does it take to calculate the CO2 emissions of a light bulb? This isn’t a joke. Businesses now employ scads of college grads to do this. For years America’s political class has lamented that too many college grads are working in low-paying jobs that don’t require post-secondary degrees. The diversity, equity and inclusion and environmental, social and governance industries—DEI and ESG, respectively—are solving for this problem while creating many others. In the modern progressive era, young graduates are finding remunerative employment as sustainability coordinators, DEI officers and “people partners.” Instead of serving up pumpkin soy lattes, they’re quantifying corporate greenhouse gas emissions and ensuring employers don’t transgress progressive cultural orthodoxies.”
– Allysia Finley, Wall Street Journal ($).
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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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The various levels of the priesthood.
This is the new version of the 1917 Russian Party Membership, with all of its perks, rewards, and upward paths, all in exchange for doing the party’s work and supporting it single-mindedly.
You have to have your name on all the right lists, and you can be cancelled and blackballed quickly and easily.
“Environmental Justice”.
Like “Racial Justice”, “Gender Justice” and all the rest of it, “Environmental Justice” is just “Social Justice” (Collectivist plundering) in a different suit of clothes. It is not really about the C02-is-evil theory – that theory may be true, but it is not what this campaign is really about.
If anyone doubts this – ask an “Environmental Justice” activist what they think of nuclear power. Their campaign is not really about C02 – it is about using the theory as an excuse for world-wide Collectivism.
By the way – the Wall Street Journal writer is quite right to draw attention to both ESG and DEI (in Britain EDI) – those Conservatives who think “this sounds O.K. – I will go along with this” are horribly mistaken.
From the start both ESG and DEI have been about pushing Collectivism – crushing liberty either in the name of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (really Uniformity, Injustice and Exclusion), or in the name of “Environmental and Social Governance” (ESG).
Establishment Collectivists such as Dr Klaus Schwab have been pushing Corporate State “Stakeholder Capitalism” (the tile of his 1971 book) long before the C02-is-evil theory became fashionable – organisations (national and international) grabbed the theory to push what they wanted to do anyway.
By the way, I am confused by the Prime Minister’s claim on Twitter today that Modular Nuclear Reactors are revolutionary new technology that will take years (and a new government body – why a new government body?) to develop.
They are not new technology – they are existing technology, and could be built right now (not “as soon as the 2030s”).
I am not attacking the Prime Minister – I am just baffled by the announcement. I do not understand it.
Doesn’t the Twitter format allow people to pile in and point out that he is mistaken? I thought that the whole point of modular nuclear reactors was that the technology already exists for powering nuclear submarines, tech that can easily be repurposed for providing electricity to the grid and also to power cargo ships.
“It is not really about the C02-is-evil theory – that theory may be true…”
It isn’t true. It is a basic scientific principle that you can make predictions based on your theory. If those predictions come to pass, then your theory is strengthened, though never proven completely beyond doubt. If however, your predictions fail then your theory is wrong. Your theory then needs to be modified or discarded completely. The CO2 is evil theory has failed this test repeatedly. In many cases the prediction didn’t just fail, the precise opposite of the prediction happened.
Stonyground.
I have read what you say – and I am indeed disturbed by the repeated failures of the predictions made from the late 1980s onwards. Disturbed because the failure of the predictions seems to have no effect – either on the scientists who make the predictions, or on the government and corporate bodies that determine policy.
Indeed rather than engaging in civil discussion, both government and corporate (Big Business) bodies just scream “denier” and demand that the dissenting person be punished.
This is not just true of the C02 is evil theory – it is also true of many aspects of policy, around the ESG and DEI (in the United Kingdom EDI) agenda.
Any dissent is denounced – and punished.
Very much a Herbert Marcuse, Freedom of Speech is evil “Repressive Tolerance”, world view.
We have reached the stage where the leading executives of, for example, major banks use (in their meetings) Herbert Marcuse style language (or close to it) to justify political persecution.
Those “practical” people who said that it did not matter that Marxists (and neo Marxists) were taking over the universities, because students would wise-up when they entered the “real world” of government and Big Business (the Corporations) could not have been more wrong.
The students cut their hair, they put on expensive suits, but they keep the totalitarian attitudes they were taught at school and university – not just in the United States, but also the United Kingdom and other countries.