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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Bill of Rights vs. ECHR

· Civil liberty, Law & Regulation

Preston Byrne makes the comparison in a speech at the Free Speech Union.

February 17th, 2025 | 25 comments

Can the UK have a tech industry?

· Civil liberty, Law & Regulation · Economics, Business & Globalization

UK government tech policy must become libertarian, writes Preston Byrne.

The government wants to boss tech companies around, but it might not get its way any more, because the market is small, tech companies are mobile, and:

…the permanent bureaucracy in the United States which might otherwise have helped the UK apply informal pressure on Americans who dared to disobey its decryption and censorship edicts – none of which, it bears mentioning, are enforceable against an American who refuses them and is happy to avoid setting foot in British territory – is gone.

We should adapt.

If the UK chooses to be the worst place for an AI company, or a social media company, or a digital asset company to incorporate and do business, it will find that it has very few such companies. Regardless of your opinions on how British society should be structured, the NHS, immigration, or the appropriate quantum of social welfare, if you don’t have high tech employers generating revenues and paying taxes, social programs become very difficult to pay for.

Will we get a government capable of making this realisation? Or will we continue to self-destruct?

February 7th, 2025 | 27 comments

Online Safety Act shutting down forums

· UK affairs

LFGSS and Microcosm shutting down 16th March 2025 (the day before the Online Safety Act is enforced)

I can’t afford what is likely tens of thousand to go through all the legal and technical hoops over a prolonged period of time

The author of this article is correct. There’s no way to safely run a web page with user interaction in the UK.

Addendum added by the editorial pantheon:

The official samizdata position to this is… they can go fuck themselves. It is unlikely we are important enough to attract official attention but if we do, samizdata has lawyers plus the actual site is hosted in USA.

So for the avoidance of doubt… the laughably misnamed Online Safety Act will be completely ignored.

We will continue to remove/reject comments we personally find offensive (or just inane/pointless) but under no circumstances will we remove a comment we do not find offensive just because someone else might.

December 18th, 2024 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)

Steve Baker interview on government debt and inflation

· Economics, Business & Globalization · UK affairs

I have not watched this yet. But I am certain it is worth watching.

Steve Baker on Why Government is Failing you Debt & Inflation Peter McCormack Podcast

In this episode, we discuss pressing economic and political issues such as the challenges of government debt, inflation, and the often overlooked consequences of central bank policies. With a focus on the impact of taxation and government spending on individual freedoms and economic productivity,. We also discuss the structural inefficiencies in politics and examine the growing disconnect between politicians and economic realities.

November 14th, 2024 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)

A downside of laws against “misinformation”

· Civil liberty, Law & Regulation

You can rest assured this is true because there is a law guaranteeing it that no-one would dare violate.

October 26th, 2024 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)

Justin Bronk on Ukraine

· Military affairs · Ukraine

Here is an information-dense video with far more than the usual talking points on Ukraine. It is not just about what is going on. It is useful understanding that helps with how to reason about what is going on.

Topics covered include:

  • Manpower and production;
  • training on Western weapon systems;
  • survivability of tanks;
  • effects of long range weapons;
  • possible trajectories of the war over the next year or so;
  • the USA’s self-interest in the war.

It provides good context for the usual talk of things like F16 deployments and map changes.

June 13th, 2024 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)

What should the government do?

· Civil liberty, Law & Regulation

Here is a good answer.

April 24th, 2024 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)

Things you can not say at Davos

· Economics, Business & Globalization

…are said at Davos.

This is an AI translated version of Milei’s speech, in which he uses words like “parasites”.

January 18th, 2024 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)

A Good Speech by Milei

· Economics, Business & Globalization

Javier Milei gave a speech:

He says a lot of good things of the sort that have been said on this blog: socialism causes economic failure and costs lives; the individual is more important than the state; it is better if everything not forbidden is permitted than if everything not permitted is forbidden; politicians are not God; fiscal deficit is bad.

I hope that he means it, and that he can do it, and that he is not undermined by the civil service, or by whatever Argentina has in the way of a “deep state”. It would be good to see Argentina getting wealthy again. It would be bad if there are further disasters and they can be conveniently blamed, by those with bad ideas, on these good ideas that Milei is talking about.

December 22nd, 2023 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)

Thoughts on AI

· Science & Technology

There is undoubtedly a revolution going on in computing capability. I remember the first time I opened up ChatGPT and asked it to write me a poem, and then realised: this is something I am not used to computers being able to do.

Computers can now respond to natural language with natural language. Let that sink in.

This is not just hype. This is a new tool completely unlike any tool we already had.

These new tools are likely to change forever the way certain types of work are done. It is important to not be left behind: AI might not take your job, but people using AI might. If you can, it is worthwhile taking the time to figure out how to use it to your advantage. Thanks to the natural language capability, it has become easier: what was previously done by meticulously gathering data sets and annotating, pre-processing and cleaning them, has been done for you with these enormous pre-trained models. What previously required learning an API and some programming can now be done by having a conversation with a chat bot.

It is not just language models, there are image, video, speech and music generation tools, too. I have mostly been playing with ChatGPT (the £20 per month service that gets you access to the GPT-4 model that is much better than 3.5), so that is mostly what I will talk about here, but it is not the only thing. “Mixed mode” is something that is around the corner, too: the combination of these models to handle natural language, visual and audio information at the same time, interchangably.

There is much potential, but there is much that is immediately useful. Right now, what can we do?

→ Continue reading: Thoughts on AI

June 16th, 2023 | 47 comments - (Comments are closed)

You are wrong about the number of people who agree with you

· Philosophical

Vlad Vexler noticed that nearly everyone online was certain that Putin sent a body double to Mariupol rather than visiting himself. Then he ran a poll, which revealed that most people weren’t quite so sure, and actually more people thought it was more likely that Putin did go himself.

The point being that it is very hard to tell from the shouting and hollering in, say, social media commentary, what proportion of people really agree with a thing.

That institution might underestimate how much of the general population are actually not on board with these projects. It could happen because some of the leading newspapers, most of the universities, much of the discourse in the social media forums normalise something that might in fact have only persuaded a section of the population. It could be even some kind of elite, some kind of educated elite or some kind of urban elite or whatever. But that institution, let’s say the BBC, might go on as though actually 80% of the population are persuaded and it’s only 12% that are sort of not quite there because they’re irrational or because they are backward or don’t see things that way. But they’re a minority anyway. The problem isn’t whether these social justice projects are right or wrong; the problem is you’re assuming an act of persuasion has happened that hasn’t happened. […]

It’s so toxic to broadcast to the country and pretend that the 20% represents the 80%.

It can work the other way, too. In Vexler’s example, if the BBC writes an article and 7000 comments complain about it and only 1000 comments agree with it, it might become scared of shifting tides of culture, that the majority are against them, and they might start to take defensive measures; to treat as normal a minority opinion.

Vexler argues that these kinds of misjudgements cause political shifts and are dangerous for democracy. Even on a small scale I think it is unhelpful to go around thinking that Twitter, for example, reveals very much about what people are, in general, thinking.

You are almost certainly wrong, one way or another, about how many people agree with you*.

*Unless you are libertarian. Then the answer is 11

March 23rd, 2023 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)

Brian Micklethwait interviewed on the subject of the history of libertarianism in London

· Opinions on liberty

I have updated the Brian Micklethwait Archive with a recording of an interview kindly given to me by Mal McDermott.

On 25th January 2020 Mal interviewed Brian on the subject of the history of the libertarian movement in Britain.

The interview of course contains much insight into libertarianism in London. From Brian finding a copy of The Machinery of Freedom in a bookshop in Staines, to the Alternative Bookshop and the Libertarian Alliance, to Samizdata and Libertarian Home.

Being a conversation with Brian, there is much digression. Discussed are the USSR, the NHS, the importance of being understood, the influence of getting people to give talks, the left wing pivoting from the working class to the environment, the creation of wealth, optimism and the freedom of children. There is much Micklethwaitian wisdom to enjoy.

The interview can be listened to on YouTube.

On the left, once you’re persuaded, you’re also persuaded of a political model for how to do it … we must elect a socialist government or topple the government and replace it with a socialist regime, and then we will make everyone socialist. … By its nature it’s a highly cooperative enterprise … A perfectly reasonable reaction to becoming a libertarian is to do what I’ve done for the last fifteen years … which is to write lots of blog postings about kittens. Because I like it. … One of my reactions to believing in freedom is that I’m free to go off and do that.

— 1:42:26

January 25th, 2023 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
 
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