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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And not just “on the agenda” in general, on today’s agenda at the European Council, “where national ministers from each EU country meet to negotiate and adopt EU laws”.
They never give up, and with “they” being the European Union, they only have to win once.
Tech Radar reports,
The EU proposal to scan all your private communications to halt the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is back on regulators’ agenda – again.
What’s been deemed by critics as Chat Control has seen many twists and turns since the European Commission presented the first version of the draft bill in May 2022. The latest development came in October 2024, when a last-minute decision by the Netherlands to abstain from the vote prompted the Hungarian Council Presidency to remove the matter from the planned discussion.
Now, about two months later, the controversial proposal has returned and is amongst the topics the EU Council is set to discuss today, December 4, 2024. EU members are also expected to express their vote on Friday, December 6.
That’s today, kids.
As mentioned, lawmakers have implemented some changes to the EU CSAM bill amid growing criticism from the privacy, tech, and political benches.
Initially, the plan was to require messaging services and email providers to scan all your messages on the lookout for illegal material – no matter if these were encrypted, like WhatsApp or Signal chats, for example, to ensure that communications remain private between the sender and receiver.
Lawmakers suggested employing what’s known as client side-scanning, a technique that experts, including some of the best VPN providers and messaging apps, have long warned against as it cannot be executed without breaking encryption protection. Even the UK halted this requirement under its Online Safety Act until “it’s technically feasible to do so.”
Fast-forward to June 2024, the second version of the EU proposal aims to target shared photos, videos, and URLs instead of text and audio messages upon users’ permission. There’s a caveat, though – you must consent to the shared material being scanned before being encrypted to keep using the functionality.
Whether Jaguar’s new electric car flops as a result of all this remains to be seen. It would hardly be surprising if Jaguar’s traditional audience – the people who actually buy its cars – give up on the company in response to all this insufferable virtue-signalling. After bending the knee so readily to the trans cause, that would be the least Jaguar deserves.
– Malcolm Clark
Greg Eiden has an interesting idea we thought might be interesting/terrifying/amusing…
What might ChatGPT or other such tools derive from an analysis of the Samizdata blog post archives? To focus this on something timely: ask it to do the analysis and propose policy ideas for the new Trump Administration, ideas consistent with the perspectives and ideas of the Samizdatista community. Or at least the broad consensus of that community about liberty and limited, less regulatory government.
There are other ways this might be posed to an AI, e.g., “which proposed policies of the Trump administration are consistent with the broad governance perspectives at Samizdata.net and why? Which are not and why?” How would you set up such an analysis to have the model have the best chance at producing something useful?
I am not interested in an experiment that assesses if ChatGPT is a good model for this or a good model in general–I want a good analysis! If the product of such an inquiry was not compelling to enough samizdatistas, if it did not pass a laugh test, we stop there.
Maybe there is a better choice of large language model than ChatGPT; maybe ChatGPT is not optimized for this sort of analysis but other models are? If you have some knowledge here, please chime in!
I did not see this coming: “South Korea’s president declares emergency martial law”, reports the BBC.
Yoon Suk Yeol, the South Korean president, is quoted as saying, “Our National Assembly has become a haven for criminals, a den of legislative dictatorship that seeks to paralyse the judicial and administrative systems and overturn our liberal democratic order.”
Sounds like projection to me.
Can anyone explain what is going on? Is there really any more of a threat from North Korea than there always is, or is it all to do with domestic politics?
Update: Lawmakers in South Korea vote to lift the martial law decree. The Guardian link says,
South Korea’s parliament, with 190 of its 300 members present, just passed a motion requiring the martial law declared by President Yoon Suk Yeol to be lifted.
All 190 lawmakers present voted to lift the measure, according to CNN.
Much depends on which 190 lawmakers were present. If the very fact that they were still in the parliament building after martial law was declared was because they they were from the opposition, President Yoon will dismiss it – although the 190 being an absolute majority of South Korea’s MPs does give their vote moral weight.
If it was a broad spread of MPs from several parties, this vote might mean the end of the coup. Either way, it is troubling to realise that a country that everyone thought was a stable democracy isn’t.
Did democracy stop being cool or something?
As a good libertarian, I feel I ought to like the emphasis that the Montessori method of education places on giving children maximum freedom. On the other hand, what I said on Tuesday, October 17, 2006 was – what is that word they used to use? – that’s it, right.
It’s been called discovery learning, experiential learning, problem-based learning, inquiry learning and now (heaven help us) “constructivist instructional techniques”.
Whatever you call it, it gives worse results for most people most of the time than just telling them.
It would save you time to take my word for it, but, if you are so inclined, you can click on the link to my old blog to discover my reasons #1, #2, #3a, #3b and #0 for saying that teachers consistently overestimate the effectiveness of discovery learning. The individual links no longer work; you’ll have to scroll down. The process will be good for your soul.
So why am I sitting here wincing as I think about the Montessori method for the first time in decades?
Because of these three tweets that form part of a long thread by Samantha Joy, an advocate of the Montessori system. She writes,
How should we help young children develop positive social skills? The typical answer:
>put children in groups
>enforce norms like sharing
>encourage collaborative play
But this approach *backfires*… often tragically. Montessori saw this, and developed a new approach:
Most people think the focus for ages 0-6 should be socializing.
Learning can wait, they say.
This is the time to meet other children and do things together: play outside, pretend, build things.
There’s just one problem with this strategy …
young children, by and large, aren’t all that interested in one another.
They *prefer* to work and play alone.
True? Or just true for the sort of anti-social little freaks who were destined to still own the set of felt tip pens* they got at the age of ten half a century later?
*Most of which still write. That’s because I put the lids on properly.
Macroeconomic management doesn’t work because the data available to do detailed macroeconomic management is shit. Therefore let’s not try doing detailed macroeconomic management. Get the basics right, the incentives, markets, then leave be.
Of course, this then leaves a paucity of jobs for economists but then as I’m not one of them why would I give that proverbial?
– Tim Worstall
There are many good Joe Rogan podcasts and this week’s episode with Mark Andreessen as the guest (opens Spotify if you have it) is right up there among them. I have to confess I didn’t know who Mark Andreessen was beforehand and I didn’t know who he was afterwards. Something in the Valley I guess but what he had to say – assuming it’s true of course – was dynamite. Government persecution of crypto, AI and anyone else it didn’t like. The government making Americans fat. Isn’t it odd how the health bureaucrats all look so unhealthy? I’m not sure about that one to be honest. Further research needed. Also, the importance of Elon Musk in not only giving us normies a voice but also the tech sector.
“I honestly don’t understand how it can be so hard to cut immigration. The government has and has long had all the tools it needs at hand to actually do it – if it actually wants to. Especially as only around 25% of visas are actually work visas. I wonder if the way forward is just to give responsibility for incoming workers to companies. If they need workers [that they] can’t find in the U.K. they can hire abroad, sponsor, house and finance them within a 3-5 year circular visa system. [This] Takes stress of public services especially the NHS and housing; it allows workers to make money to take home and reduces long-term numbers. Japan has a system much like this.”
– Merryn Somerset Webb, columnist. These comments appeared on her Linkedin page.
While many on the free market side of the fence can be at odds on the immigration issue, what seems plain to me is that controlling legal immigration ought to be pretty straightforward if that is the policy. So why is this so hard to do in practice? I cannot help but think that it is a lack of political will, and an element of resistance to enforce democratically-enacted policy at the level of the Civil Service. In which case, it is no wonder that the Conservatives got crushed in July and that, on current trends, the current shower in government will go the same way.
Progressives and Left-wingers in the UK have gone right off “Vox populi, vox Dei”. The Brexit vote was the last straw. Every time I try to think of a first straw – Essex Man voting for Thatcher? – an earlier one pops into my head. Maybe, as we discussed last week, the British Left’s long turn away from reverence for the views of the populace goes right back to the popular conservatism of the Primrose League. In itself, this cessation of reverence is probably a good thing.
Whatsoever, for any cause,
Seeketh to take or give,
Power above or beyond the Laws,
Suffer it not to live!
Holy State or Holy King—
Or Holy People’s Will—
Have no truck with the senseless thing.
Order the guns and kill!
(Relax, delatores, it’s only a poem.) The sort of progressives who have reluctantly had to say, “The people have spoken, the bastards” do fewer terrible things than the sort of progressives who still think their will and the will of the people are one and the same.
But although the voice of the people-in-general is no longer sacred to British progressives, the voices of some people still are. Which people? Being from an ethnic minority certainly helps to gain entrance into the category of persons who must be listened to with reverence, even if enough black and brown-skinned British people have followed in the footsteps of Essex Man (including the Essex MP who leads the Conservative Party) that skin colour no longer works on its own.
However, being an ethnic minority and a socialist is a qualification, and being a Muslim Labour MP lets you say practically anything without fear of contradiction. Why, you can cheerfully propose to reverse one of the proudest achievements of the previous Labour government, and the leader of the present Labour government will spray out deliberately-ambiguous words in response that pointedly do not include the word “No.”
Yesterday’s Hansard records that Tahir Ali, the Labour MP for Birmingham Hall Green and Mosely, put the following Parliamentary Question to the Prime Minister and received the following reply:
Tahir Ali
(Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley) (Lab)
Q12. November marks Islamophobia Awareness Month. Last year, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning the desecration of religious texts, including the Koran, despite opposition from the previous Government. Acts of such mindless desecration only serve to fuel division and hatred within our society. Will the Prime Minister commit to introducing measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions? (901500)
The Prime Minister
I agree that desecration is awful and should be condemned across the House. We are, as I said before, committed to tackling all forms of hatred and division, including Islamophobia in all its forms.
A video of the exchange can be seen here.
Wikipedia claims that “The common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel were formally abolished in England and Wales in 2008 and Scotland in 2024.” The laws concerned had been dead-letter laws for some time before that, but their final extinction in England and Wales under Gordon Brown’s premiership was actually accomplished by means of an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill 2008 put forward by the Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris. There was little serious opposition, even from the Established Church. For instance, the Bishop of Oxford said,
“We are representatives of religious, secular, legal and artistic opinion in this country and share the view that the blasphemy offence serves no useful purpose. Yet it allows partisan organisations or well-funded individuals to try to censor broadcasters or intimidate small theatres, print media or publishers.”
That, and more importantly the fact that such laws directly contradict the teaching and example of Jesus, was why I and many other Christians welcomed the end of the offence of blasphemy.
I must admit that when the new age of toleration dawned in 2008, I was expecting a gap before it dusked, if that is a word, of longer than fourteen years in England and Wales and, er, zero years in Scotland.
Because dusked it has. Blasphemy against the Muslim religion is already effectively illegal in the UK, and has been for some time. As reported by the BBC, “A religious studies teacher at Batley Grammar School was forced into hiding in 2021 after showing a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad during a class.” He is still in hiding. There are other similar cases. Defenders of Sir Keir argue that his two-faced waffle in response to Tahir Ali’s question was just him trying to keep two factions of his own party on side – in other words they celebrate his evasiveness as a clever move. But when the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has to resort to deception in order to avoid saying “No, we will not reintroduce a law against blasphemy”, darkness has already fallen.
As most of us are aware the almost all Western governments are living beyond their means. Every year they spend more than they raise and their debts spiral ever upwards. But there is a solution: ask the voters. Here is how it would work:
- On his birthday the voter is asked what he would like the government to spend its money – sorry ill-gotten gains – on.
- The voter gets to select from the departments of state: defence, interior, health, education etc.
- At the end of the month the selections of all the voters who have responded are totted up and government revenues for that moth are divided amongst government deportments in proportion to how many voters have selected them.
At a stroke:
- Spending and revenues are brought into line.
- Voters cannot complain that the government isn’t spending enough on such and such because it is in their power to do something about it.
- If it becomes apparent that a department has too much money (or too little) then that will (one hopes) become public knowledge and voters will change their selections accordingly.
- There will no longer be interdepartmental rows over spending. It is taken out of the hands of politicians.
- Departments would have a strong incentive to keep waste to a minimum. If it becomes known that they are being wasteful, voters are likely to move their money to a different department.
I can see some objections/issues:
- How should voters make their preferences known? In person? By mail? Should the voters get one vote or several? 90% of me wants to spend on defence but 10% wants the money spent on prisons.
- War. If a war starts it could take a while for the state to get on a war-footing. About a month but I would guess there would be provision for such an emergency.
- Publicity. Humans being humans and politicians being politicians, there will be great competition between departments for voters’ favour. Would there be a danger of advertising budgets getting out of hand? If advertising was banned what else might politicians get up to?
- Revenue is lumpy as are birthdays. The government does not raise the same amount every month and birthdays are not evenly distributed throughout the year. This could have some interesting effects.
“PAY UP OR SHUT UP” – “TRILLIONS NOT BILLIONS” – “Global North, PAY UP!” These are some of the signs being held up by climate activists in a photograph taken at the recently concluded COP29 conference in Baku. Perhaps the women holding the “Pay up or shut up” sign are unaware of how many citizens of the Global North wish their governments would take the second option. More probably these activists are well aware that, whatever the citizens of those countries might want, said governments are committed to taking “climate action” and are positively addicted to talking about taking climate action. The link takes you to a Guardian article that continues,
It was only on the last scheduled day of two weeks of negotiations at the UN Cop29 climate summit that developed countries put a financial commitment on the table for the first time.
In reality, this offer took not just two weeks of talks to prepare, but nine years – since article 9 of the Paris agreement in 2015 made it clear that the rich industrialised world would be obliged to supply cash to developing countries to help them tackle the climate crisis.
When it finally arrived on Friday, the initial offer of $250bn (£200bn) a year by 2035 was widely derided as too low. Early the following morning, the countries upped the figure to $300bn, which ended up being accepted, albeit amid acrimony and cries of “betrayal”.
The Telegraph‘s account says,
Cop29 ground out a last-minute compromise deal on Saturday night that offers at least $300 billion (£240 billion) per year by 2035 to help poorer countries confront global warming and allows China’s contributions to remain voluntary.
The sum demanded by the less wealthy nations had been much more following two weeks of negotiations in Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea capital of Baku.
Mukhtar Babayev, the Cop29 president, declared open the final summit plenary after midnight on Saturday, two days after the conference was officially scheduled to end.
A final text was released following several sleepless nights for negotiators, with tensions boiling over as small island states and the world’s poorest countries walked out of one meeting.
A last-minute deal in extra time! Who could have guessed that would happen? Answer: anyone who remembered COP28 in 2023, COP27 in 2022, COP26 in 2021… but I did not come here entirely to recycle my post from this time last year (though I thought the title was amusing), but to point out that rich countries explicitly paying poor countries “to tackle the climate crisis” may have unexpected consequences.
Here is how Wikipedia describes Jizya:
Jizya (Arabic: جِزْيَة, romanized: jizya), or jizyah, is a type of taxation historically levied on non-Muslim subjects of a state governed by Islamic law
Modern writing about jizya as levied in the Ottoman Empire, for instance, tends to emphasize that, for the times, it represented a relatively good deal for adherents of minority religions. It gave those who paid it definite legal status as protected persons. Other descriptions of jizya are less palatable to the modern reader: many Muslim authorities saw the jizya “as a symbol of humiliation to remind dhimmis of their status as a conquered people and their subjection to Islamic laws” and, above all, as an incentive to convert to Islam.
Only it didn’t always work out that way. Robert Hoyland’s book In God’s Path tells of a pious governor of Khurasan called Ashras ibn ‘Abdallah who sent a missionary to bring the dhimmis under his rule to Islam:
…the man they hired preached in the environs of Samarkand, declaring that those who became Muslim would be freed of the poll tax, “and the people flocked to him.” . . . When Ashras realized that a consequence of his policy was a sharp drop in tax revenues, he ordered: “Take the tax from whomever you used to take it from,” and so they reimposed the poll tax on those who had become Muslim, prompting many to apostatize.
Later Islamic rulers learnt from this and similar episodes that they could avoid the trouble such a sharp reversal of policy caused and keep their jizya revenue flowing by quietly discouraging dhimmis from conversion, while, of course, loudly proclaiming how utterly vital it was that they should convert.
I very quickly found my people…
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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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