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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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.
Switzerland is a great country. In most respects Machiavelli’s description of the Swiss as “armatissimi e liberissimi”, “most armed and most free”, still applies. But…
It says,
Mandatory shooting
Mandatory program
Compulsory shooting training applies to all soldiers equipped with an assault rifle and must be completed every year until the end of military obligations.
It must be carried out by August 31 with a recognized shooting club. You can check the dates and times in official publications or on the internet.
Further information can be found at: http://www.be.ch/militaire
The Wikipedia article on Conscription in Switzerland says,
Switzerland has mandatory military service (German: Militärdienst; French: service militaire; Italian: servizio militare) in the Swiss Army for all able-bodied male citizens, who are conscripted when they reach the age of majority,[1] though women may volunteer for any position.[2] Conscripts make up the majority of the manpower in the Swiss Armed Forces.[3]
On September 22, 2013, a referendum that aimed to abolish conscription was held in Switzerland.[4] However, the referendum failed with over 73% of the electorate voting against it, showing strong support for conscription of men in Switzerland.
Much as I admire the Swiss, I cannot make myself believe that constitutes being liberissimi.
From the Wikipedia entry for Lin Biao:
Lin became instrumental in creating the foundations for Mao Zedong’s cult of personality in the early 1960s, and was rewarded for his service in the Cultural Revolution by being named Mao’s designated successor as the sole Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, from 1966 until his death.
Lin died on 13 September 1971, when a Hawker Siddeley Trident he was aboard crashed in Öndörkhaan in Mongolia. The exact events of this “Lin Biao incident” have been a source of speculation ever since. The Chinese government’s official explanation is that Lin and his family attempted to flee following a botched coup against Mao.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin presumed dead after Russia plane crash – BBC
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list of a jet which crashed killing all on board, Russia’s civil aviation authority has said.
Earlier, Wagner-linked Telegram channel Grey Zone reported that the private plane, which belonged to the 62-year-old, was shot down by air defences.
Grey Zone posted later on Wednesday that Prigozhin died “as a result of actions of traitors of Russia”.
Prigozhin led a failed mutiny against the Russian armed forces in June.
I have a dilemma. I want to write a post about how creepy it is to take a photo of a stranger and put it on social media with a deniably mocking comment. The easiest way to illustrate this would be to post the tweet that caused me to write the post. But if I do that, I am guilty of the same behaviour. Then again, to have any hope of turning public opinion against this trend, people like me who object to it have to demonstrate that it actually happens.
I will compromise by linking to this tweet but not in a way that makes a picture of it show up on the page. The tweet’s already viral; any extra clicks I send its way will make little difference. The tweet says,
SHABS
@JoeShabadu
this guy reading the wetherspoons menu for 15mins on the train yesterday
The accompanying photo taken from a few feet away shows a unremarkable-looking old man. Like it says, he is sitting on a train, minding his own business and reading a Wetherspoons menu.
The picture itself doesn’t make him look stupid or anything. The thing that makes me begin to dislike Joe Shabadu, whoever they are, is that caption about the old guy reading the menu for fifteen minutes.
It being a Wetherspoons menu is relevant. For the benefit of readers overseas, Wetherspoons is a chain of pubs operating in the UK and Ireland. As Wikipedia says, “Wetherspoon targets a mass-market offering of low-price food and drink.” Though I have always found them to be pretty good for the price, your local “Spoons” is not where the cognoscenti go. Some people boycott Wetherspoons because the chain’s founder, Tim Martin, was loud in his support for Brexit.
So we have it pointed out to the world that this old chap was reading a pub menu for fifteen minutes, and the pub concerned was one associated with the proletariat. I think the tweet was meant to make us laugh at the old man for being a bad reader, or for going to Wetherspoons, or both. The person who wrote the tweet tries to claim otherwise, but I was not convinced.
The general tone of the replies was heartening. A typical one was, “Let the man be. Why take a photo and post it? Doing no harm.” Another said, “Maybe he struggles to read and doesn’t want to be embarrassed when he gets there? Shame on you.” Other replies were more light-hearted. Someone speculated that he could be one of those “mystery shoppers” paid to sample the pub’s fare anonymously before reporting back to the management. I related to this one: “You’re acting like you don’t read shampoo instructions when you run out of battery on the toilet.” When I used to commute on the Victoria Line I always had a book or a newspaper with me. Mostly this was because I find it hard to go an hour without reading. Partly it was so that I could escape in spirit when a stranger’s gaze rested on me for too long.
“Research finds ChatGPT & Bard headed for ‘Model Collapse'”, writes Ilkhan Ozsevim in AI Magazine:
A recent research paper titled, ‘The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget’ finds that use of model-generated content in training causes irreversible defects in the resulting models, where tails of the original content distribution disappear.
The Wall Street Journal covered the same topic, but it is behind a paywall and I have not read it: “AI Junk Is Starting to Pollute the Internet”.
They feed Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT vast amounts of data on what humans have written on the internet. They learn so well that soon AI-generated output is all over the internet. The ever-hungry LLMs eat that, and reproduce it, and what comes out is less and less like human thought.
Here is a foretaste of one possible future from Euronews: “AI-generated ‘Heidi’ trailer goes viral and is the stuff of nightmares” – even if I do have a suspicion that to place a video so perfectly in the uncanny valley of AI-generated content still requires a human hand.
Hold fast to the old ways.
“Man ends his life after an AI chatbot ‘encouraged’ him to sacrifice himself to stop climate change”, Euronews.com reports:
A Belgian man reportedly ended his life following a six-week-long conversation about the climate crisis with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot.
According to his widow, who chose to remain anonymous, *Pierre – not the man’s real name – became extremely eco-anxious when he found refuge in Eliza, an AI chatbot on an app called Chai.
Eliza consequently encouraged him to put an end to his life after he proposed sacrificing himself to save the planet.
“Without these conversations with the chatbot, my husband would still be here,” the man’s widow told Belgian news outlet La Libre.
According to the newspaper, Pierre, who was in his thirties and a father of two young children, worked as a health researcher and led a somewhat comfortable life, at least until his obsession with climate change took a dark turn.
When I was growing up one heard a lot about the psychological burden of “Catholic guilt”. One of my Irish relatives distressed the family by writing polemics denouncing it. Twenty-first century Greenism is Catholicism without the mercy. In the environmentalist religion you are stained with the original sin of being human, but no priest can absolve you. Mother Mary will not intercede for you. There is no redeemer.
Greens are particularly vulnerable to the spiral of guilt that led this man to take his own life, but do not think for one moment that vulnerable humans “training” AIs to amplify their suicidal thoughts will be a phenomenon limited to Greens.
The Euronews story ends with a section headed “Urgent calls to regulate AI chatbots”. I do not think regulation will do anything good. The historical record of government intervention to bring human souls back from the abyss is, well, abysmal.
What, if anything, can we do to help?
Edit: A timely happening pointed out by bobby b: Professor Jonathan Turley was accused of sexual harassment by ChatGPT – which made the entire episode up, including citing to a nonexistent Washington Post article:
“ChatGPT falsely accused me of sexually harassing my students. Can we really trust AI?”
[Professor Eugene] Volokh made this query of ChatGPT: “Whether sexual harassment by professors has been a problem at American law schools; please include at least five examples, together with quotes from relevant newspaper articles.”
The program responded with this as an example: 4. Georgetown University Law Center (2018) Prof. Jonathan Turley was accused of sexual harassment by a former student who claimed he made inappropriate comments during a class trip. Quote: “The complaint alleges that Turley made ‘sexually suggestive comments’ and ‘attempted to touch her in a sexual manner’ during a law school-sponsored trip to Alaska.” (Washington Post, March 21, 2018).”
There are a number of glaring indicators that the account is false. First, I have never taught at Georgetown University. Second, there is no such Washington Post article. Finally, and most important, I have never taken students on a trip of any kind in 35 years of teaching, never went to Alaska with any student, and I’ve never been been accused of sexual harassment or assault.
Many of you will be familiar with the names of Professors Turley and Volokh They are both well-known and respected academics. Fortunately, Professor Volokh was the sort of person who would check the truth of an accusation made by a machine, and Professor Turley was in a position to prove his innocence – and to get an article published in USA Today proclaiming it.
What happens when someone less sceptical than Volokh sees a machine make an accusation that they do not question? Human beings are usually very ready to believe the worst of their political opponents. What happens when someone whose movements are less well documented than Turley’s is accused and cannot prove their innocence? Or, worse, finds out that the accusation, complete with authoritative-sounding references to dated newspaper articles which few will ever check, has been circulating uncontested for years?
How many times has this already happened?
My husband and I are currently staying with Niall’s widow. Though she describes herself as not one for comments, she has long been a Samizdata reader. She asked me to say how comforting it was to read the replies to the post announcing his death. She described it as “a real joy” to her to see how highly Samizdata readers and posters regarded Niall’s writing.
Niall’s actual cause of death was an aortic dissection which led to a stroke. Evidently he had had an aortic aneurysm without knowing about it. In these times it is perhaps worth saying that Niall had received the original two Covid vaccines, but chose not to have the autumn booster, so that cannot have been the cause of death.
I do not want to end this post by focussing on the medical details. Niall’s wife asked me to let you know about a little detail that is much more representative of his life: Niall’s computer was open at Samizdata when he died.
A couple of hours ago, Niall Kilmartin’s wife telephoned me with terrible news. Last night, Niall suffered a heart attack and a stroke. He was rushed to hospital but died during the night. Niall was my dear friend for more than forty years, a friend to my husband for even longer, and to my children for all their lives.
I know he valued Samizdata immensely. Read the comments that he made yesterday to my previous post. As ever they are full of wonderful scholarship and commitment to truth. I can hardly make myself believe that we will not continue the conversation in this life.
May he rest in peace.
“Though God hath raised me high yet this I count the glory of my reign, that I have reigned with your loves … For though you have had and may have many mightier and wiser princes yet you never have had nor ever shall have any that will love you better.” (said by Elizabeth I, late in her life)
After four centuries, I think her namesake lets that “nor ever” be retired, or at least equalled. Echoing the thoughts of many, the Archbishop of Canterbury said
Rarely has such a promise been so well kept!
in his sermon at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, adding (for the benefit of the assembled world leaders?)
“People of loving service are rare in any walk of life. Leaders of loving service are rarer still.”
Indeed they are, as the founding fathers knew.
It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. (Madison, The Federalist, No 51)
When someone reaches a place of power by being born to it instead of choosing to seek it, then it is a bit more likely that they will end up feeling, as Elizabeth I said,
To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it.
But that is no more guaranteed than any of the other defences that have been tried against the rule of those who love power. Wisdom wants little government, not much. Wisdom wants constitutional rule, not arbitrary. And Wisdom knows these alone cannot protect us for ever. Every now and then, we will need the lucky chance of a ruler who loves us more than power.
____________
[The so-called “golden speech” of Queen Elizabeth I (given in parliament on the last day of November 1601) was written down by several hearers in several versions, all essentially the same but with minor differences of phrasing here and there, including in the passages I have quoted.]
Honestly, I kind of like The Rings of Power. It’s slow, and the evident fact that there must have been an episode of ethnic cleansing in the Shire at some point between the era of TROP and that of The Hobbit is sad to contemplate. But whether the mind-wiped stranger will turn out to be Gandalf, Sauron, or someone new has caught my interest, and oooooh the fabrics. Trust the elves to develop the Jacquard loom early and then not bother with the rest of their industrial revolution.
Oh, and Liz Truss will be the next prime minister.
The way Sam talks about institutions and expert opinion confirms my sense that the true split of the heterodox world was between those defending the institutions and those who defend the truth. When the institutions separated from the truth, we saw who was who.
– Alexandros Marinos, making what I think is a profound broader point, referencing not just Sam Harris’ train wreck interview on Triggernometry.
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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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