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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I have never really grokked what makes Apple loveable to people – their style is attractive, sure, but it strikes me as very 50’s “modern.” And it all looks so identical, little rows of computers all looking exactly the same, little iPods all exactly the same, little stores all with exactly the same arrangement, etc. It all seems so mindlessly conformist, these endless plastic rounded boxes all in antiseptic white. It looks totalitarian.
This insight into Apple Computer’s design was made by the reader Balfegor, in response to a post by Ann Althouse on the merits or otherwise of the offerings of that computer company.
I myself am so frustrated with the erratic performance and system bloat of Windoze XP that I am resolved to not purchase another item of software from Microsoft, and I am tossing up between buying an Apple or building my own Linux based system. I have heard great things about Apple’s recent offerings, but I had always had an objection to the company’s products which I could never put my finger on until I read Balfegor’s comments.
The novellist William Gibson was interviewed on open source radio talking about the NSA wiretap scandal. The wonderful folks at BoingBoing transcribed part of it, and one part of it struck me as particularly interesting.
I’ve been watching with keen interest since the first NSA scandal: I’ve noticed on the Internet that there aren’t many people really shocked by this. Our popular culture, our dirt-ball street culture teaches us from childhood that the CIA is listening to *all* of our telephone calls and reading *all* of our email anyway.
I keep seeing that in the lower discourse of the Internet, people saying, “Oh, they’re doing it anyway.” In some way our culture believes that, and it’s a real problem, because evidently they haven’t been doing it anyway, and now that they’ve started, we really need to pay attention and muster some kind of viable political response.
It’s very hard to get some people on-board because they think it’s a fait accompli…
I think it’s [the X-Files, Nixon wiretapping, science fiction]. I think it’s predicated in our delirious sense of what’s been happening to us as a species for the past 100 years. During the Cold War it was almost comforting to believe that the CIA was reading everything…
In the very long view, this will turn out to be about how we deal with the technological situation we find ourselves in now. We’ve gotten somewhere we’ve never been before. It’s very interesting. In the short term, I’ve taken the position that it’s very, very illegal and I hope something is done about it.
I was particularly taken with the idea that popular culture has a role to play here. Did Hollywood create the paranoid ‘they are all listening in to us’ culture, or was it merely responding to popular demand. Who creates the zeitgeist that can often have a very big impact on the way the public perceives political and economic and social events? No one controls it, no one can control it, and no one person is in charge of it. And I think that makes it all the more an interesting phenomena to observe.
Once again the ‘we know whats best’ brigade is out in force, targeting pharmacutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. They are upset about some obscure point of medical research. However the tactics that they are employing are rather sinister, even for the creepy ‘animal rights’ fraternity.
Animal rights activists threatened small shareholders in GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceutical company, with public exposure yesterday unless they sold their shares within two weeks.
Shareholders, many of whom are pensioners, were sent anonymous letters saying that their names would be put on a website unless the shares were sold.
GlaxoSmithKline has set up an information page for shareholders, which is welcome. However the company is deserving of censure, or, indeed, of a right-royal kick in the bollocks over this matter. Shareholders have a right to privacy and how the animal rights fanatics managed to obtain shareholder details is a question that the company should make great efforts to find out the answer to.
Given the highly emotive and irrational nature of the animal-rights lobby, this is not a matter that GlaxoSmithKline should be taking lightly.
Most folks on holiday like to unwind, relax, and take it easy. This means that tourists are not always the global community’s best behaved citizens. Now, as China increasingly enters the mainstream community of nations, Beijing is worried about the behavior of Chinese abroad.
Chinese tourists have been told by their government to watch their manners on holiday, as behaviour that “merely disgusts” at home might not be tolerated abroad.
Spitting, slurping food and skipping queues are the kind of “bad social graces” some Chinese tourists display while on holiday, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
“The increasing number of Chinese tourists travelling abroad may be a huge new source of income to destination countries, but that won’t prevent complaints against individuals from reflecting badly on all of China,” the report said.
I much prefer social pressures then state ones to stamp out anti-social behaviour. The more Chinese people see of the world, the less they are likely to indulge in anti-social behaviour. I must confess the sooner people anywhere give up spitting (and chewing gum), the happier I will be, however.
This vacancy should send my career into orbit!
Australian government efforts to foist an ID card on its subjects have not really worked out, but the statist desire to identify and regulate its subjects are as perennial as weeds, and the latest gambit looks likely to get the go-ahead, with the cabinet to discuss a photo-ID ‘government services card’. This half-way house measure could be announced in next month’s budget, despite costs that look likely to be north of $A 1 billion.
As well as a photograph, the card will carry a computer chip with all of the subject’s details on it.
John Mearsheimer is a Professor at the University of Chicago who has attracted a great deal of attention in the blogosphere recently for a paper he co-authored about the role of the Israeli lobby and its influence on the policy of the United States towards the middle-east region. I think it fair to say that, at the very least, the paper was not his finest hour.
But it attracted me towards some of his other work, and the estimable Winterspeak, posting at Jane Galt’s blog, recently went to a speech where he outlined some of his views on his theory of international relations. Winterspeak was not entirely convinced.
Of course, political science is even more of a ‘black art’ then economic science. A scientific theory in the natural world can be demonstrated or refuted by scientific verification. In the social ‘sciences’ such verification is much harder. Therefore, making predictions about the future is hard. But one I still a worthwhile exercise. Readers can judge for themselves.
One of the aspects of Professor Mearsheimer’s work that has drawn particular attention is his view that the internal composition of states does not matter, democracy or dictatorship, theocracy or monarchy, they will have the same foreign policy goals. Given that in the United States, democracy is seen as a sacred cow, this is bound to be a provocative stance.
In considering this point of view, it may be helpful to make a distinction between ‘strategic’ foreign policy thinking, and ‘tactical’ foreign policy thinking, just as a chess-player does. Strategic is ‘this is what we want’ and tactical is ‘this is how we are going to get it’. If you view Professor Mearsheimer’s work in that light, I understand why he thinks that way. Take, for example, his recent debate with Zbigniew Brzezinski on the future of China’s policy. It seems to me that the internal composition of China’s government will not make a great deal of difference towards China’s desire to regain Taiwan.
It does of course make a great deal of difference about how they go about getting it, though. I am not very knowledgeable about China or its people, so I am not at all sure about how a future Chinese democracy would go about trying to reclaim Taiwan from the mainland. It may be thought that a democratic Chinese government would be sensible enough to eschew war, but given what the Chinese people seem to think about their neighbours, and watching other Asian democracies in action, gives me reason to doubt the good sense of a Chinese democracy.
It does seem to me that the tactics a state employs though are extremely important, and have massive and wide-ranging implications. Therefore, if one may be critical of Professor Mearsheimer’s theory, it is that he under-rates the importance of tactical moves in foreign policy goal setting. The classic example of this would be the transformation of Prussia into Imperial Germany in the late 19th century, and its effects on France and Russia. A more contemporary one, and more pointed given his latest academic effort, is that vital one of United States support for Israel. This policy is effected precisely because the United States is a democracy and, like it or not, the American public opinion is far more favourable towards Israel. This expression of American opinion thus translates into a massively different policy position towards the Middle East then would be the case if United States foreign policy was principally conducted with the interest of the government only in mind, as would be the case if the United States was a dictatorship.
And that support has a huge bearing on the foreign policy strategies of Arab states. So in the long run, democracy matters.
That does not mean that a democracy is likely to pursue more sensible or rational foreign policies. Democracy is no guarantee of good government. It simply means that governments in democracies have different political considerations to bear in mind when they make diplomatic decisions. I would welcome readers views on this matter.
It seems that the great audio-tape recorder maker has been at it again, casting aspersions and making threats from his luxurious cave in the better parts of the Pakistani badlands.
Apparently Sudan is preying on the old boy’s mind. One would have thought that anyone that the ghastly regime there wanted to kill would be dead by now, but just in case the UN make sure of it by sending a force to help out, Osama is going to rally the faithful against them.
I call on Mujahedin and their supporters, especially in Sudan and the Arab peninsula, to prepare for long war again the crusader plunderers in Western Sudan
Hmm. Geography was never my strongest suit, but I must confess I was bemused to see ‘plunder’ and ‘Western Sudan’ together in the same sentence. Osama, as an old Sudan hand, should be aware of this. Perhaps he’s losing his grip?
There’s plenty of action going on in my last post on immigration. Much is being made in the comments about the distinction between legal and illegal immigration. As ‘permanant expat’ put it:
“Unrestricted” immigration, as practiced by most (Socialist) European governments is a BAD THING…..period. Anyone unable to understand that is living on another planet.
Illegal immigration is a TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE THING…..period. Anyone who doesn’t understand that lives far, far away in another galaxy….
Immigration is a “Death Star”…..but there’s no Luke Skywalker anywhere to be seen.
Out here on the planet Liberty, it strikes me that this distinction between legal and illegal immigration is spurious. Immigration should be discussed on its merits, and merit is NOT something that is dispensed by legislative agencies.
It always surprises me that many ‘libertarians’ who shout the loudest for the free trade in goods and services, are apparently willing to turn around and argue all for government intervention when it comes to the freedom of movement in people.
According to this BBC news report, the Labour party spent £ 7,700 on Cherie Blair’s hair during the election campaign. Not my idea of value for money. Sure they won, but still…
There are few topics in the world that get people heated up more then immigration, and in both Australia and the United States, societies that have been built by mass immigration, the topic is in the news.
In the United States, the question is based more on what to do about the millions of illegal immigrants that have consistently been keen to seek opportunity in that great country, and have taken the dubious path of avoiding the proper legal channels to do so. In ordinary times this would not have been such an issue. However, since 2001 the United States has become naturally very sensitive about who enters its borders. I am actually surprised that it has taken this long to surface.
The United States immigration question is particularly interesting. You might think that a society that has built itself on mass immigration would be in favour of more immigration, but this is not the case, and generally never has been the case. In general immigration is tolerated, rather then actively embraced by the general populace, but when times get tough, the political mood can turn quite quickly on newcomers. This was as true in the recession of 1819 as it is today.
This is because the costs of immigration are felt and paid for by individuals, but the benefits of immigration are diffuse and spread right across society. It is a shame that many defenders of the right of the free movement of people refuse to admit that there are costs to immigration. The worker who finds his wages undercut or loses his job entirely, or the victim of violence or the householder who finds his property values eroded is naturally going to feel distressed and angry at what he or she sees as the ‘cause’ of his or her loss. People find themselves surrounded by people of different appearance, religion, and cultural conditions, and worry about how the newcomers will assimilate. → Continue reading: Three cheers for immigrants!
No, George W. Bush’s ego has not in fact got out of hand. The US Secretary of State was in fact welcoming the President of Equatorial Guinea, who was described on state radio in that country as “like God in Heaven, with power over men and things”.
Lucky him.
Not so lucky are the rest of the people in Equatorial Guinea, who get the short end of the stick when it comes to liberty and the like.
I can understand the need of the United States to maintain influence over a place like Equatorial Guinea, which has a great deal of oil reserves. He’s a sunofabitch but he’s our sunofabitch. Or something like that. Realpolitik will be with us for a long time to come. However, that doesn’t mean that such a slimebag should be given the five-star treatment in Washington. Or, indeed, anywhere outside his own wretched balliwak.
(Via Passport)
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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.
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