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]

Samizdata quote of the day

I was in a (US) bookstore when a group of young Chinese (15 – 25 years, I’d guess) tourist/students entered. While I was there, they bought a stack of Dalai Lama books, saying they were not available in China. They also bought several recent histories on China, saying that they liked to be able to compare with the histories they got in China, to keep track of what the government was changing/denying. Additionally, they said they were getting in less sight-seeing than they had planned, as they were enjoying the web w/o government filters, especially on searches.

There are a lot of implications there.

– commenter “J2” on this

13 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • jso

    Hopefully they will move to America and become citizens.

  • Alsadius

    Hardly surprising, but it is gratifying.

  • lukas

    Can we keep them and send Tom Friedman to China in exchange? Pretty please?

  • Cynic in Asia

    “Let’s find out what lies the imperialists are telling!”

    China is developing. Into something, but not necessarily into us; perhaps into something that hasn’t been seen yet.

  • Nuke Gray

    Of course, the Chinese can be inscrutable. Maybe these ‘browsers’ are really the Chinese equivalent of the KGB. Now they know what books to ban from the ‘net! How could we tell what they’ll do with the books?

  • Johnathan Pearce

    Perhaps we can also send them Michael Moore in an exchange, although he is probably too much of a communist for them.

  • He’s probably too much of anything for them.

  • I thought China had agreed to stop imports of toxic waste from Western nations?

  • Kev

    “Hopefully they will move to America and become citizens.”

    How? The immigration restrictions are so tight it’s almost impossible to move there legally without marrying an American

  • Paul Marks

    A Chinese person who bought a copy of “Mao: The Untold Story” in front of other Chinese – or took the work back to China…….

    Well such people may exist (I hope they do) – but they are brave indeed.

  • Jack Olson

    Hedrick Smith, a Moscow correspondent for the New York Times, once invited a group of Komsomol members to his apartment for a dinner party. Smith had placed several copies of “Gulag Archiepelago” in Russian around his apartment. After his guests left, Smith found what he had expected, that every copy of the book had disappeared. It’s quite possible that the Komsomols had swiped the books because they had value on the black market. But, it’s equally possible that they were more curious about the book than fearful of being caught with it.

  • ic

    Here in the US, we have to read the British papers via the internet to learn about Climategate. Btw, our politicians and the Media are still pushing for cap-and-trade to avoid global warming. Record snow in DC was due to global warming, for sure, man made too.

    Thank AlGore for creating the internet. Now the Chinese and the Americans can compare notes. The Chinese are censored by their govt., the Americans are censored by the current govt.’s propaganda branch.

  • Paul Marks

    ic – Climategate has been well covered by Fox News and by talk radio.

    However, yes, ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN (and of course PBS) have not exactly covered themselves in glory. But their TASK is to cover up some things and to lie and distort others – to compain about the “mainstream” media being collectivist liars is like complaining about water being wet.

    The same is true of “mainstream” print journalism – the New York Times and the newspapers who follow it, plus Time and Newsweek.

    It is surely time for Ayn Rand’s “Sanction of the Victim”.

    Just stop watching the “free” news, and stop buying the “mainstream” newspapers and magazines. This is what more and more people are doing anyway.

    It is not just the internet that is killing the msm – it is more and more people starting to understand just how despicable the msm are.