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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Some people are just too “clever by half” or lack a basic level of human empathy, despite playing the moral outrage card. I saw this comment on my Facebook page. To spare the guy (who is in the US) embarrassment, and as his comments were not meant to be fully public, I will not name him, and I suspect he’s not alone in taking this sort of line:
“I’m sick and tired of everybody valorizing Donald Trump in the wake of the assassination attempt yesterday. Somebody tried to kill him and he got an injury to his face. How does that make him more virtuous? How does that make him somehow more qualified to be president? How does that make Biden LESS qualified to be president? Is it even possible to make either of them less qualified to be president? The fact that you endured an assassination attempt simply means you are the passive recipient of somebody else’s misconduct. It does not make you more virtuous or more heroic.”
The penultimate sentence contains the seeds of this writer’s error (such as his words “passive recipient”), and a key point is that, in the writer’s way of thinking, Trump/other shooter victim should only be viewed as a victim. But the writer missed the point, and here is what I wrote in response:
“It’s how a person reacts to an attack that counts. In fact, it’s about when people refuse to play the `victim card’ and behave in a particular way that’s important. It comes down to how composed and calm a person can be in times of stress. In all walks of life, we admire people who display those traits…And I think Mr Trump handled himself well after being shot and realizing that a shooter was trying to kill him. If you can’t give a person credit for that, then that’s odd.”
I would go beyond what I said to this person on FB by making a broader point. Today, we live in an age when it is often widely held among supposed intellectuals, scientists and the like that we don’t have free will, and that we are, in varying ways, the consequences of internal and external forces we cannot understand or control. As a result, it is – as the writer I responded to claims – no cause for praise in how anyone reacts to said forces.
To have free will is, according to this point of view, an illusion, albeit perhaps a necessary one for mental health and maybe also an aspect of biological evolution. (The latter has the risk of being a “just-so” story explanation.) But if free will is nothing more than a handy, surface appearance, then it is hard to see how it has much value, much cash value, from evolutionary terms. After all, knowing you are not the author of your actions might, for some people, be comforting, rather than a nightmare. And think of how certain well-known writers, such as Sam Harris, argue that free will is an illusion and that, for example, criminals are ill, primarily, rather than wicked. The flipside of this is that a person who shows courage, either physical or mental, gets no praise because, on the determinist view, he had no choice in the matter. Everything, including the words I type right now, I had no choice over. None. We are all in the Matrix.
But this is self-contradictory. If determinism is true and judgement is pre-determined, how can we know the truth of determinism if we had no choice but to do so anyway? I think we know from introspection that the sense that we are making a choice to focus our minds or not, to set the course of how we want to think about something (or not), is real as anything is in the universe from an empirical sense. To think is to choose; thinking and volition are intertwined so much as to be one and the same. If introspection is an illusion, then so is sight, smell, taste, hearing, etc. But oddly, determinists rarely in my experience challenge these senses’ validity in conveying reality.
Back to Mr Trump’s way of reacting to the would-be assassin and others like him: I think that Mr Trump, whatever else one can say about him, had the kind of character, a character that for better or worse he has developed, to want to assert himself in the face of danger. That’s not always smart or fashionable in these weird times, but it is there. There is a sort of Andrew Jackson-style baddass mind-set that came to the fore on Saturday.
(Here are some excellent places to look if you want to understand, as I do, why I think free will is real. See this book, by Christian List, for example, or this or this one by Alfred Mele. And finally this, by Lee Pierson and Monroe Trout, for those who want to burrow deep into the evolutionary argument.)
Addendum: The writer is also denouncing the idea that Mr Trump being shot is somehow proof of his virtue. However, I doubt anyone thinks that. Of course, Mr Trump does threaten the agendas of a lot of people, foreign and domestic, but that is not the nub of my point here, although I am sure commenters will want to mention these issues.
The count through the night after British elections makes great TV. What could be more juicy than thrusting a microphone into the face of someone who has just made their concession speech and asking them how they feel? ITV’s election coverage roped in a lot of ex-politicians who had been there themselves to carry out this task, including two former Chancellors of the Exchequer, one Labour and one Conservative, Ed Balls and George Osborne. The two former rivals seemed very pally. As is the custom, they interviewed both the winning and the losing candidates in various constituencies just after the results were announced when emotions are at their most raw.
So, in the early hours of Friday morning, Steve Baker was standing in Stoke Mandeville Stadium where the Wycombe count took place, having just lost his seat to Labour, being quizzed by a visibly gloating Ed Balls. Baker talked about three factors that got him into politics, all of which had been presided over by the government of which Balls was a part: Extraordinary Rendition, Labour bringing forward the Lisbon Treaty to avoid having a referendum on the Constitution for Europe, and “that your government rode an enormous credit boom within which the money supply tripled, leading into the global financial crisis”.
Chuckling, Ed Balls said, “Goodness me, Mr Baker, I have to say, y’know, it’s 2024. You’ve just lost your seat in your constituency. You’ve sort of thought of three different things which all happened over seventeen years ago. Are you maybe in denial?”
Freed of the obligations of being a minister, Baker’s response did not spare either the Labour or the Conservative Chancellor:
“You know as well as I do that these big treaty changes with the European Union, and indeed the monetary system post-Bretton Woods, is fifty years old – and it’s now breaking down. And I’m afraid you and George are as bad as each other on this particular score. Neither of you have ever really understood monetary economics and I’ve wasted a lot of breath in the House of Commons trying to explain to George in particular what was going on, and the kind of injustice it was manufacturing. Well, much good did it do everybody. And now, with the nation seething with a sense of injustice, economic injustice – of course they are; they can’t afford house prices if they are young! Why? Because cheap credit was pumped into a housing market in which supply was constrained by planning laws, about which neither of you did anything. So, you know, at last, as I say, I’m free, thank God.”
Commentators as varied as the financial journalist John Stepek, the IEA’s Reem Ibrahim, and the very left wing Aaron Bastani have reposted Baker’s reply. As Stepek said, “Sorry but @SteveBakerFRSA is mostly, perhaps entirely correct in his analysis here. And the smug reaction – ridicule, not to mention the extraordinary notion that 17 years ago is ancient history with no bearing on the current situation – exemplifies why voters are fed up”.
“They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother’s knee at the mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. The vision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud. As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals.”
– G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Reading this Samizdata quote of the day got me thinking about why devolution in the UK has been a general disappointment and source of endless annoyance.
I remember when arguments were originally made for devolution, commentators would claim that devolution would work in the same way that the federal structure of the US works, or, for that matter, how the cantonal system works in Switzerland. By which they meant that if a state such as Zug in Switzerland or Wisconsin in the US tried a specific policy (encouraging cryptos, or enacting Workfare, to take two actual examples), that the perceived success or failure of these policies would be studied by other cantons and states. Hence the idea that devolution allows a sort of “laboratory experiment” of policy to take place. It creates a virtuous kind of competition. That’s the theory.
What seems to have happened is that since devolution in the UK, Scotland, Wales and to some extent, Northern Ireland, have competed with England in who can be the most statist, authoritarian and in general, be the biggest set of fools. Whether it is 20 mph speed limits spreading to many places and harsh lockdowns (Wales) or minimum pricing on booze and “snitching” on your own family for views about gender (Scotland), the Celtic fringe appears to be more interested in being more oppressive, rather than less. I cannot think of a single issue in which the devolved governments of the UK have been more liberal, and more respectful, of liberty under the rule of law. (Feel free to suggest where I am mistaken.)
One possible problem is that because the UK’s overall government holds considerable budgetary power, the devolved bits of the UK don’t face the consequences of feckless policy to the extent necessary to improve behaviour.
Even so, I don’t entirely know why the Scots and Welsh have taken this turn and I resist the temptation to engage in armchair culture guessing about why they tend to be more collectivist at present. It was not always thus. Wales has been a bastion of a kind of liberalism, fused to a certain degree with non-conformity in religion, and Scotland had both the non-conformist thing, and the whole “enlightment” (Smith, Hume, Ferguson, etc) element. At some point, however, that appears to have stopped. Wales became a hotbed of socialism in the 20th century, in part due to the rise of organised labour in heavy industry, and then the whole folklore – much of it sentimental bullshit – about the great achievements in healthcare of Nye Bevan. Scotland had its version of this, plus the resentments about Mrs Thatcher and the decline of Scotland as a manufacturing power.
I like visiting Wales – I went to Anglesey last weekend and loved it – and the same goes for Scotland. I can only go on personal observations in saying that I enjoy my trips there, and I have some family links to Scotland on my mother’s side. (My wife has some links to Wales.). But for whatever reason, the political culture of both places is, to varying degrees, absolutely horrible.
Maybe the “test lab” force of devolution will play a part in demonstrating that, as and when we get a Labour government for the whole of the UK, it will be a shitshow on a scale to put what has happened in the Celtic parts of the UK in the shade.
“I hate this framing because the “freedom” vs “order” tradeoff is not real. Russia has a higher homicide rate than the US. life there is shorter and more violent. if you’re choosing between freedom and order autocracy will get you neither”
Seva Gunitsky is referring to Jon Stewart telling Tucker Carlson that the reason why the US ‘can’t have clean functioning subways or cheap grocery prices like they do in Moscow is “the literal price of freedom”‘.
I am sure Jon Stewart would decline with horror an offer to work as one of Putin’s worldwide army of propagandists. But Putin does not need to make the offer when Stewart and many others are spreading his message for free.
Many working people who currently have no choice but to endure the aggressive begging, foul smells, and frequent violence in the subway systems in New York and other U.S. cities run by progressive Democrats would count freedom (a political abstraction that they are constantly being told is an outdated white patriarchal construct) as an acceptable price to exchange for getting to go to work in something more like the gleaming Moscow Metro.
Sure, they would eventually realise that they made a poor bargain. A Professor Gunitsky says, the cleanliness and order of the Moscow subway is like one room of a generally filthy house that is obsessively kept clean in order to impress visitors. → Continue reading: The condition of New York’s subway system is not the price of freedom, it is the price of voting for left wing Democrats
“The feminist double standard was born. Women could invade men’s spaces, but men could not do the reverse. Girls could play for the boys’ high school soccer team if they were good enough, but boys could not play on the girls.’”
Wanjiru Njoya is correct, and the point is general. Defend the rights of others as you would defend your own rights. Because you are defending your own rights.
I hear the faint chink of the penny dropping at Guardian. This profile of misinformation specialist – read that job description as you will – Kate Starbird is predictably fawning, but they seem distinctly anxious to get across the idea that she and other misinformation specialists are no longer going to behave in the way they did in the last few years: ‘Stakes are really high’: misinformation researcher changes tack for 2024 US election
A key researcher in the fight against election misinformation – who herself became the subject of an intensive misinformation campaign – has said her field gets accused of “bias” precisely because it’s now mainly rightwingers who spread the worst lies.
Kate Starbird, co-founder of the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, added that she feared that the entirely false story of rigged elections has now “sunk in” for many Americans on the right. “The idea that they’re already going to the polls with the belief that they’re being cheated means they’ll misinterpret everything they see through that lens,” she said.
Starbird’s group partnered with Stanford Internet Observatory on the Election Integrity Partnership ahead of the 2020 elections – a campaign during which a flood of misinformation swirled around the internet, with daily claims of unproven voter fraud.
Starbird and her team helped document that flood, and in return congressional Republicans and conservative attorneys attacked her research, alleging it amounted to censorship and violated the first amendment.
Starbird, a misinformation researcher, herself became the subject of an ongoing misinformation campaign – but said she would not let that deter her from her research. Her team wasn’t the only target of the conservative campaign against misinformation research, she noted: researchers across the country have received subpoenas, letters and criticism, all attempting to frame misinformation research as partisan and as censorship.
Jim Jordan, chair of the House judiciary committee, served as the ringleader of this effort in Congress, using his power to investigate groups and researchers that work to counter misinformation, particularly as it related to elections and Covid-19. One practice that especially upset Jordan and his colleagues was when researchers would flag misleading information to social media companies, who would sometimes respond by amending factchecks or taking down false posts entirely.
That is censorship. One can argue that it is justified censorship, but it is censorship.
Nor is it just Congress attacking anti-misinformation work. A federal lawsuit from the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana alleges that the Biden administration violated the first amendment by colluding with social media companies to censor and suppress speech.
The Guardian’s writer, Rachel Leingang, has phrased that last sentence so that it could easily be read as saying the whole of the phrase “the Biden administration violated the first amendment by colluding with social media companies to censor and suppress speech” has the status of a mere allegation, a question yet to be decided. I hope Ms Leingang will forgive me if I clear up that potential ambiguity. The U.S. courts may or may not rule that the Biden Administration violated the First Amendment by colluding with social media companies to censor and suppress speech, but there is no doubt whatsoever that the censorship happened.
A new lawsuit from the state of Texas and two rightwing media companies takes aim at the Global Engagement Center, a state department agency that focuses on how foreign powers spread information.
The pressure campaign has chilled misinformation research just ahead of the pivotal 2024 presidential election, as some academics switch what they focus on and others figure out ways to better explain their work to a mixed audience. One thing they will probably no longer do is flag posts to social media companies, as the practice remains an issue in several ongoing court cases.
Hear that? They’ve changed now. Censorship was so 2020. They aren’t going to do that any more. Probably.
Taking a Christmas break from my customary snarkiness, I mean this without irony. I would like to make one of those motivational posters with an inspirational quotation or slogan on it. The slogan would express an idea that I already believe strongly, only I have not yet found the best way to express it.
The starting point is a slogan that has many variants, but the version I saw first and like best is:
“If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it was always yours. If it does not, it never was.”
Knowing my audience, I shall link to the demotivational version as well. It’s a quote from B.J. Novak, who was probably a ray of sunshine until he played the temp in the American version of The Office.
So, the slogan for which I reach is similar to that one (the motivational version, not Novak’s), but is about acceptance rather than love. Something like:
“If you seek acceptance, don’t demand it, ask for it. If the other person says yes, you know you are truly and freely accepted. If they say no,
Then what? I don’t know what to say. I’m not sure if it’s even a good idea to mention the consequences of the other person saying “no”. I suppose I could say “better to be aware they do not accept you than to be deceived by them feigning acceptance out of fear, which will probably lead to them stabbing you in the back whenever they get the chance”, but that one’s a bit of a downer to put on a poster. The point I really want to make is that true acceptance cannot be had if the person being asked to do the accepting does not have the option to say “no”.
The reason I seek a more pithy way to express this sentiment than anything I have come up so far is that, as I said a few years back in a post called “To knock on the door is better than booting it in”, “Like some warrior cultures of old, the grievance culture holds getting what you want by asking or peaceably trading to be fit only for slaves. The superior person does not ask for what they want; they demand it.” This attitude is culturally dominant in both senses.
I can see why this disastrous misapprehension arose. There are circumstances where the only moral course is to demand one’s just rights as rights, with not the slightest hint of pleading. But there can be no right to be accepted, just as there can be no right to be loved.
Probably the most important man of the 21st Century, if only for his potential to do good, Argentine President-elect (as I write) Javier Milei sat down with Tucker Carlson for an interview, (excerpt provided) at which he discussed the Pope, the murderous Castros and architecture amongst other points (that socialists are evil and think they are ‘God’). The interview was done with Mr Carlson asking questions in English and Señor Milei’s replies in Spanish are sub-titled (accurately I would add) and presumably interpreted in real time.
This segment is just over 9 minutes long, and it is well worth watching. We have all the indications that he is the real deal, he says that he is prepared to die for his beliefs, let us wish him a long and productive life and Presidency.
“The kinds of people who are willing to justify, minimize, or deny the slaughter of millions by the likes of Stalin and Mao are unlikely to blanch at Hamas’ much smaller-scale atrocities. If you are willing to embrace the Great Leap Forward, Stalin’s purges, or Lenin’s Red Terror, there is probably no limit to what you will accept, so long as you think it is moving the world in the right direction.”
– Ilya Somin, in an article that goes into the details of why so many on the Left have adopted a version of the oldest hatred.
“We often read critics of either ideological stripe bemoan the lack of originality in our art, our music, and most certainly, our movies. Old franchises suffer from Woke narratives smuggled into stories that should never have been revived. Nostalgia is the only thing that motivates moviegoers now because we really have no new stories to tell. We’re only entertained by ‘content creators’, influencers, and the next series to watch on Netflix, Hulu, Apple Plus, Paramount, Max, and Amazon Prime. But the Woke left and the TradCon right both suffer from the same affliction — a lack of imagination. That lack of imagination was caused by the death of allegory, metaphor, hyperbole, parable, myth, sarcasm, poetry, and the woodcraft to express it — all replaced by an autistic literalism needed to protect the egos of lazy, mediocre minds.”
– Rollo Tomassi, a US-based writer and podcaster who talks about issues such as intersexual dynamics.
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
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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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