An Engineer, a Mathematician and a ‘Climate scientist’ are each asked “what is 2 + 2?”
The Engineer says “somewhere between 3.9 and 4.1”, the Mathematician says “4” and the ‘Climate scientist’ says “what would you like it to be?”
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Anyone else watching Star Trek: Discovery? ‘Tis quite the novelty in Solent Mansions: my dear husband and I sit down and watch television. On the very day a new episode comes out, my dears, for we will not wait! Now we all know that by the time the era of Classic Trek rolls around after about a quarter of a century, certain things must have happened: – the Spore Drive will not merely have dropped out of use, but will have been erased from human and Klingon memory. – same goes for the holodeck. – and for standards of starship interior design. – the Klingons will look like Kang from Day of the Dove, not like Face Paint Thingy or Girl Thingy who can scarcely move under all those bone ridges. – miniskirts will be back in. – Captain Lorca will be revealed to be bad and wrong. The Star Trek universe has “proving warmongers wrong” listed higher up in its job description than “entropy”. But it is OK to quietly relish their badassery à la Gene Hunt in Life on Mars while we wait for the inevitable. The question is how will all that is prophesied come to pass? November 14th, 2017 | 71 comments - (Comments are closed)
The series is modelled on shows like the A-team, but produced natively for consumption in written form as a serial short story. Much as Bleak House was originally published by Charles Dickens as a regular newspaper feature this punchy little story will be added to over time in the way that a TV show is added to with a new episode broadcast each week, except that future episodes are not yet all written. As such it borrows something of the currency of a soap opera, able to evolve and adapt constantly, but is firmly in the sci-fi category. This is an interesting and novel form of written fiction. Anyone questioning why a lightweight techno thriller should be reviewed on Samizdata would do well to read Brian Micklethwait’s summary of The Power of Fiction, a talk given by former City AM managing editor Marc Sidwell. Anyone wondering what on Earth they might do about it, finding themselves unable to write fiction of their own should read the thoughts of Richard Gleaves, author of Ride Headless and Ride (itself reviewed on Libertarian Home). So anyway, here is the Amazon review. You can buy it, read it and write your own review on Amazon: Clive Fox is making an important contribution at a critical time.
– Simon Gibbs July 25th, 2017 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
“Walking Dead” and the rest of television and movie entertainment shows that the left still have not learned the lessons of the the colony the Mayflower founded. In the “Walking Dead” the world is overrun by zombies – and the remaining humans are either brutal raiders and exploiters, or living in communes where people work together to produce food and so on for the common good. There is no large scale private ownership of anything and no large scale private employment – and it is NOT really because the zombie plague had destroyed the world, it is because the entertainment industry people (and the education system) hate large scale private ownership of the means of production and hate large scale private employment. The moral ideal of both the education system and the media (especially the entertainment media) is the caring-sharing community where everyone loves each other and works for the common good. This view of humanity is not confined to the “Walking Dead” – it is basically the view offered in all popular entertainment. Either people are working together in little communal “communities” or they are being exploited by evil “capitalists” (“Big Business” – boo-hiss). To the left (i.e. the education system and the media – especially the entertainment media) a “capitalist” is not someone who invests and thus helps produce goods and services, a capitalist is a vicious sadist (such as Negan in “Walking Dead” or a million other “exploiter” examples in literature, television, film and school “history” books) who “exploits” people partly for loot (taking the “product of their labour” – Labour Theory of Value) and partly simply out of sadism, cruelty – the desire to inflict suffering for the pleasure of inflicting suffering. To the left, the education system and media, a company is a “psychopath” because businessmen seek to maximise profits, and profit (in the minds of the education system and the media) means loot, the exploitation of the workers and consumers. That many media companies are, well, companies does not change this – even many high ranking business executives subscribe to the world view that business is evil as they have never been taught any other world view. Even if they went to a private school and university they were, mostly likely, taught that private property is evil (“selfish”) and that the highest good is a caring-sharing local commune – as we see in “Walking Dead” and a thousand other shows. In their own business dealings they are often indeed very treacherous and seek to cheat both employees and customers – as they have been taught that is what “capitalists” are like, and like the late Robert Maxwell they regard their own immoral conduct as proof that “capitalism” is evil. The obsessive, and dishonest, greed of many on “Wall Street” and their leftist politics are not in contradiction – they are mutually reinforcing. March 14th, 2017 | 68 comments - (Comments are closed)
In the distant future the Emperor of mankind (not yet referred to as “God Emperor” as the official position, at this time, of the Imperium of mankind is that the Emperor is not a God) faces a terrible revolt led by his son Horus – a war that future generations will call the “Horus Heresy”. Horus has been seduced by what future generations would call the “Chaos Gods” or “Infernal Powers” – but which the Imperium presently describes as creatures of the warp, the dimension that craft use to travel between solar systems faster than the speed of light in normal space. Many worlds have been reduced to burned husks, and many millions of people have been (and are being) killed as the war spreads across the galaxy and the forces of the enemy advance towards the Earth itself. But worse even than this – many of the Emperor’s most trusted warriors (the genetically enhanced Marines) have sided with Horus – who was, after all, the Warmaster (commander) of the Imperial armed forces. The behaviour of those genetically enhanced Marines who side with Horus is baffling – they ignore all rules of engagement, and revel in the torture and killing of civilians. They have also scored massive victories by surprise attacks on Imperial forces – turning on their own brothers in arms without warning and with a savagery (and sadism) that leaves their opponents (and former brothers) first baffled and then dead. At least the fortunate opponents are dead. At first stunned by its terrible defeats the Empire of Mankind slowly responds – using interrogation (often brutal) to reveal traitors, both ordinary human and genetically enhanced, before they can strike. And the Empire strikes back (no Star Wars reference intended) in space – attacking worlds that are either captured or declare for Horus, literally meeting fire with fire. Many planets hesitate in deciding which side to declare for – after all either side may prove the victor and both sides are destroying planets. March 5th, 2017 | 35 comments - (Comments are closed)
From Instapundit (my emboldenings):
Doctor Who fans will know exactly where this sort of thing leads: You have been warned. January 12th, 2017 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
Yesterday something reminded me of the Space Cadets:
At the time I talked about it a great deal, as everybody did, but I could not watch it for more than a few seconds at a time. Too close to home. On discovering that it was a hoax one of the cadets said, “I was planning my speech about achieving my childhood dreams. I’m a little bit broken-hearted.” I was a little bit broken-hearted for her. I, too, had grown up dreaming of space. The cruellest aspect of the show was that it made clear to the world that the cadets had been selected for their credulity and lack of scientific knowledge. Like many of those reading this I would have “failed” that particular test. But let us not put on airs; it is proverbial among scammers that there is good hunting to be had among educated people who think they could never be fooled by anything. Why am I still thinking about these nine innocents sold a pup when a whole decade has gone by? Millions agree to take jobs and find them not as advertised. Billions agree to take spouses and find them not as advertised. Such is the way of the world. At least the cadets were handsomely paid. Enough, I assume, to head off any lawsuits about breach of contract – and I would imagine that those contracts were written by clever lawyers in the first place. If the cadets had been the type to read every sub-clause in a contract they would not have been chosen to be filmed larking around in a wooden replica spaceship allegedly equipped with gravity generators. My memory was triggered (not, like, triggered triggered; just triggered) by all the talk now about consent. I am not thinking primarily about sexual consent, although that is relevant, but about the increasing sensitivity around posting any photographs and films of people without their permission. This new sensitivity isn’t just politically correct wailing. Brian Micklethwait of this parish finds it entirely consistent with his libertarian principles to take care to hide the faces of ordinary people he photographs, as he mentions here, even as he points out that the case is different for public figures. The world has changed. The internet never forgets a name. It is getting closer to never forgetting a face. When the cadets signed their contracts that wasn’t so obvious. October 3rd, 2016 | 32 comments - (Comments are closed)
Dual Universe is a computer game being worked on by some developers in France who are currently looking for extra funding on Kickstarter. It is a multiplayer game set in space that is attempting to have a player-driven economy, much like Eve Online, with resources in the game being bought and sold between players on markets. It goes further than Eve, though, with players able to design new items from scratch and even script them with Lua, which should allow for invention of new in-game technology, which should allow for player-driven economic growth within the game. Another feature which caught my attention is their approach to the dilemma of enabling player versus player combat while allowing for players to enjoy playing the game without being attacked at random. There is the concept of a safe zone in which an anti-violence bubble is generated by expending energy. What is more, the player who owns the machine that generates the safe zone can give out mining rights within it, and exclude other players who do not pay him a tax. I think they should rename this game Libertarian Utopia Simulator. September 23rd, 2016 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
Justin Webb writes in the Times: Amazing what these Americans can do just by thinking about it. Webb, or whatever sub-editor wrote that headline, has finally acknowledged the truth first revealed in dramatic form sixty years ago:
Donald Trump must have an especially American id. He is always calling violence upon himself by the sinister power of his subconscious. By the way, monsters from the Dallas branch of the id also killed Kennedy: “The city of hate had, in fact, killed the President.” Update: Evidently Dallas is a sort of wi-fi hotspot of the id. The fabric of reality wears thin in Texas. (Oklahoma isn’t so bad, being protected by Rodgers & Hammerstein. And New Mexico votes Democrat.) Getting back to Dallas, no individual can be blamed for the recent murders of policemen there. In Texas such things are inevitable. September 19th, 2016 | 33 comments - (Comments are closed)
Of all the dire threats, this from the French Economy Minister (there is one? an economy I mean) is the most chilling, since it reminds me of how far we have fallen.
So the rate of income tax would be a standard 20% and there would be no VAT and no Capital Gains or Inheritance Tax? That’s some good deal for being insignificant. Of course, this 20% tax rate is an anomaly in Guernsey, it was introduced as 4 shillings in the pound (20 shillings per pound/livre) in WW2. Let’s look at some of the measures the Nazis introduced in the occupied Channel Islands.
Well we have a long way to fall before that state of affairs, and cycling in double file is by no means discouraged bar some circumstances by the Highway Code, presumably in the hope of causing more accidents. So let freedom reign, even though the sky (and tax rates) may fall. And today, I couldn’t help noticing the timing of these sequential adverts on a hoarding in Newcastle. and next this: June 20th, 2016 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have never read or taken an interest in Harry Potter, I only bought one such book as a requested present for a young family member, for which I apologise. However, J K Rowling, Labour donor, renowned author and Cybernat 5-minute hate subject, has gone up in my estimation as she stood up for Donald Trump’s right to visit the UK, echoing the attitude of Voltaire.
We know what that destination is. She goes on.
Such a pity about the working, as my maths teachers used to say, but positive sentiments in favour of liberty and openness to debate are welcome and refreshing, albeit depressingly scarce in public debate. May 18th, 2016 | 72 comments - (Comments are closed)
The question as posed in the title of this entry was raised at The Federalist. What say you, Samizdata commentators? April 11th, 2016 | 37 comments - (Comments are closed)
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