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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We couldn’t find a single negative review of Unsettled that disputed its claims directly or even described them accurately. Many of the reviewers seem to have stopped reading after the first few pages. Others were forced to concede that many of Koonin’s facts were correct but objected that they were used in the service of challenging official dogma. True statements were downplayed as trivial or as things everyone knows, despite the extensive parts of Unsettled that document precisely the opposite: that the facts were widely denied in major media coverage and misrepresentations were cited as the basis for major policy initiatives.
When dissenting scientists are implicitly compared to Holocaust deniers, or their ideas are considered too dangerous to be carefully considered, it undermines public respect for the field and can lead to catastrophic policy mistakes. It’s human nature to favor evidence that confirms our biases and leads to simple conclusions. But for science to advance, it’s essential that moral certainty does not override objective discussion and that personal attacks not replace rational consideration of empirical evidence.
– Aaron Brown & John Osterhoudt
After expressing my general admiration for the course, I raised my misgiving in the following way (and this is nearly an exact quote): “We need to keep in mind that we’re a state university. Our mission is to pursue, ascertain, and disseminate objective truth, and to equip our students to do the same. Given that mission, I don’t think we can list a learning outcome that requires students’ assent on a matter of personal morality. The other learning outcomes are fine. You don’t need that one, so I’d just cut it.” My colleague was fresh out of graduate school and not yet tenured, which (theoretically) put her in a vulnerable position. Nevertheless, she became apoplectic; so angry, in fact, that she had difficulty getting out her first sentence. “I can’t believe people still think that way!” she spluttered. “Queer Theory has deconstructed objectivity!”
– Mark Goldblatt, The Approaching Disintegration of Academia.
The woke think of themselves — and want everyone else to think of them — as deeply moral. If they have a flaw, it’s that they just care too much. They’re too idealistic, too empathetic, too eager to make the world a better place.
That’s bulls–t (pardon my French, Pepé!). If you look at what they do, rather than what they say about themselves, it quickly becomes obvious that the woke are horrible, awful people, and they should be treated as such and reminded of this whenever they raise their head.
Historically, it’s not the good guys who are out burning books and censoring speech. It isn’t the caring, empathetic people who try to destroy lives based on something someone said years ago, often while young, often taken out of context. It isn’t the good guys who take undisguised glee at the ruining of lives, families and careers.
You know who does these things? Horrible, awful people. Selfish people. People with serious mental and emotional problems who seek some sort of vindication for their deficient characters by taking power trips while imposing suffering on others.
Treat these tyrants as what they are: awful people who shouldn’t be listened to and who need to work hard on joining the better half of the human race. And remind them of it, over and over. Because it’s true. Deep down, they know it, too.
– Glenn Reynolds
Nothing speaks to the madness of the modern elites better than their war on farming. Consider France. One day President Macron is telling the world to get serious about ‘food security’. Post-Covid and with war raging in Ukraine, we must make sure food keeps being made and transported around the world, the French government says. Yet, at the same time, that same government, without missing a beat, is bringing in pesticide bans that could devastate sections of France’s own agriculture industry. Which could even lead to the closure of farms. Behold the schizophrenia of the 21st-century establishment.
– Brendan O’Neill
We are many, they are few. The Welsh Rugby fans did their country proud and they did the cause of liberty proud by defying the petty little tyrants who would rule our lives and restrict our speech. And a big fuck you, to Chris Bryant, which is what he deserves. It is by resistance to tyranny that we make it unworkable. There is a lesson here.
– Longrider. The key to winning the culture war is to actually fight the bloody thing.
The vast differences between US and UK policing practices are not just a matter of public perception, either. During the fiscal year 2020 in the US, federal law-enforcement agencies reported 65 arrest-related deaths – 47 per cent of which were homicides. And there were a total of 614 deaths in custody. During the same time period in England and Wales, there was just one fatal police shooting – of a 57-year-old white man who was part of a street fight in Wiltshire. In the same year, 19 people died in or following police custody – of those 19, 17 were white and two were black. If anything should concern us about these incidents, it’s not alleged racism – it’s the fact that so many involved people with addiction and mental-health issues. Indeed, 12 of the 19 people were identified as having mental-health concerns, and 14 had a known link to alcohol and / or drug abuse. […] Culture warriors need to recognise that the US and the UK are very different – in their histories, in their cultures and in their laws. America’s race war has no place here.
– Rakib Ehsan
Why might an organisation such as the Air Force be tempted to pursue compliance with such zeal that it ends up unlawfully non-compliant? The simple, if cynical, reason is that for any bureaucracy, targets related to process are much easier to hit reliably than targets related to outcomes. What’s more, outcomes-based targets which can be brute-forced through process – ensuring that 40% of recruits are female by 2030, for example – are easier to manage than end-use targets, such as having an operationally effective Air Force.
– Henry Hill, CapX.
“Governments over the years have ruined many successful domestic industries. Interference in football could well have the same doleful effect. We have enough problems for the government to sort out before it interferes in yet another area of economic and social life.”
– Professor Len Shackleton, IEA Editorial and Research Fellow, and author of the report Red Card. The quotation came from a press release I received today from the IEA.
Becoming vaccinated was the easy choice, not the hard one. There was never any evidence it was the sensible choice and it could be argued – and this may seem harsh – that if you were determined to be part of the group, wilfully and determinedly deaf to any counter-argument or even call for caution, absolutist in your own belief in you virtue and knowledge, irrationally frightened of death, unthinking, superficial and glib, fearful of other people’s opinion of you, filled with desire/fear to comply with the powerful for safety or favour, then becoming vaccinated was the only choice. But these are not exactly admirable qualities.
– Common Knowledge Edinburgh
I suspect this article will annoy some people as it is a divisive issue. I do not agree with every point of the article either (I am not anti-vaccines per se, I just don’t think this particular one made any sense), but it does raise points worth pondering.
What’s more, a hit piece from a mainstream media outlet is rather a status symbol in my line of work. “You’ve arrived,” a friend helpfully explained. Indeed I have – following the viral speech at the Oxford Union, a second appearance on BBC Question Time and now this hit piece, I reflect on the last couple of weeks with tremendous satisfaction. And a lesson or two learned along the way – I will continue to engage with people from all over the political spectrum in good faith, but I’ll be recording the interviews myself going forward.
– Konstantin Kisin
“Unlike government, a corporation has no legal authority to force anyone to do anything. It can’t tax you, arrest you, or conscript you. It can’t force you to work for it. It can’t force you to invest in it. It can’t force you to buy its products. Bakan, however, says corporations “determine what we eat, what we watch, what we wear, where we work, and what we do.” No, they don’t. They make us offers, which we can accept or refuse. But those offers give us countless options to improve our lives—options we wouldn’t have otherwise. Far from a threat, the earned economic power of corporations brings us great benefits.
People interact with corporations voluntarily. If a corporation sells a shoddy product, people can refrain from buying it. If it sets prices they regard as too high, they can negotiate or look for a better deal. If it pays low wages or lays off employees, they can work elsewhere or start their own business. If people think Google and Facebook collect too much personal data while failing to properly safeguard it, they can use other platforms or services. Bottom line: If you don’t like a corporation, you can avoid it. You do not have this choice with government, though. Ignore the IRS, and fines, penalties, or prison await you. You can opt out of Google and Facebook, but you can’t opt out of the surveillance dragnet of the NSA.”
– Michael Dahlen, The Objective Standard.
“We are all capable of hypocrisy. When someone says at a party, `I’m a great listener,’ you just know they are going to yak on about themselves for hours.”
– Tim Stanley, Daily Telegraph. (£)
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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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