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]

Is Charlie Kirk’s murder a tipping point?

Samizdata quote of the day – Charlie Kirk

I find it personally deeply upsetting. Kirk was a very religious-y person and I’m an implacable atheist, so there there lots of things I disagreed with him on. But what he encapsulated to me is “free speech”. He debated with everyone, openly, without hostility, honestly, directly. He was without guile, laid it out on the table, kind to a fault, and, most dangerously of all to the left, extremely convincing. To me that makes him one of the greatest men of the 21st century. Free speech is, to me, probably the greatest virtue and basic foundation of all of society, and yesterday the men who couldn’t win the argument took out its greatest, happiest warrior.

Fraser Orr

Samizdata quote of the day – African countries demanding reparations are astonishingly hypocritical

David Eltis, described by Henry Louis Gates of Harvard University as “the world’s leading scholar of the slave trade”, reckons that nineteenth-century expenditure on slavery-suppression outstripped the eighteenth-century benefits. And the political scientists, Chaim Kaufmann and Robert Pape, have concluded that Britain’s effort to suppress the Atlantic slave trade alone in 1807–67 was “the most expensive example [of costly international moral action] recorded in modern history”.

The African Union’s demand for colonial reparations is an act of cynical opportunism. But unless our elites learn to care less about signalling their virtue and more about doing justice to their own country’s historical record, it will cost us all.

Nigel Biggar (£)

Samizdata quote of the day – fake papers and fake editors

This is where the worship of “expert” peer review science gets us — a science crime syndicate.

Once science stopped being about winning arguments and became just the-number-of-papers-someone-published, it became an empty shell. And once billions of dollars, depended on sacred ‘experts’, it was doomed.

Long gone are the days when papers were hardly ever retracted and pal review was “the big problem? Now, fake papers and fake editors are so rife they are their own specialist industry. Networks of brokers connect paper-mills up with authors and publishers and place batches of papers in journals with ‘friendly editors’. When Richardson et al analyzed PLOS ONE, they found 33 editors who seemed to have an extraordinarily high rate of retractions. One in particular had approved 79 papers of which, 49 had already been retracted.

Jo Nova

Samizdata quote of the day – the terminal hypocrisy of Labour

Labour bigwigs have spent so long portraying themselves as morally superior that they have come to believe their own hype. They really do seem to think they are, as a group, almost beyond reproach. That they are the good guys, the virtuous ones. What they lack in any substantial political vision for Britain, they make up for in skyscraping self-righteousness. Which blinds them to their own hypocrisy.

Tim Black

We are ruled by lies

Samizdata quote of the day – Predator politics

But here’s the rank hypocrisy that makes Kyle’s bile choke in his own throat: if anyone’s “on the side of predators,” it’s Labour’s sordid history with child protection scandals. For years, Labour councils and figures turned a blind eye to grooming gangs terrorising vulnerable girls in Rotherham, Rochdale, and beyond, all to avoid “racism” accusations. Starmer, as DPP from 2008-2013, oversaw the CPS dropping Savile investigations despite evidence. Labour MPs voted against Tory and Reform calls for a grooming gangs inquiry in January 2025, only U-turning in June after relentless pressure. Reeves defended the delay as Starmer “assuring himself”, code for political cowardice. These are the types who opposed national accountability for decades of cover-ups, letting predators roam free. Kyle’s party fought tooth and nail against exposing the truth, yet he dares sling Savile slurs at Farage? It’s spectacular hypocrisy, a deflection from Labour’s own filthy laundry.

And what of Kyle himself? This isn’t a man driven by pure principle. Peek at his financial backers, and the picture muddies. Kyle’s register shows donations from the Tony Blair Institute (£1,694 in 2023), that globalist echo chamber pushing tech regulation and surveillance agendas. He’s pocketed from unions like CWU, and Labour MPs, including Kyle, have raked in over £280,000 from the Israel lobby for trips and perks. Big Pharma and US healthcare lobbyists have chipped in too, via the Blair outfit. Most seriously In February, his department gave a £2.3 million contract to Faculty AI, a company that had donated £36,000 to him in May 2024. Worse still is the case of Emily Middleton, formerly an employee of Public Digital, who was seconded to his office alongside a £66k donation who has been appointed a Director General in his department (via @StarkNakedBrief)

Gawain Towler

Samizdata LOL of the day – Mate, can you do us a favour… stop beating us up

It has almost become a feature of the English sporting calendar, like the Epsom Derby and the FA Cup final, to watch a local heavyweight lose to Oleksandr Usyk in a packed football stadium or on prime-time television. Five Englishmen, on eight separate occasions, have tried and failed across two different weight divisions to beat the Ukrainian champion. None has succeeded. When Daniel Dubois was knocked out in the fifth round on Saturday night, before a sold-out crowd of 90,000 people at Wembley Stadium, it seemed like a sporting affirmation of Einstein’s definition of stupidity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Hugo Timms

Also this is amusing.

Samizdata quote of the day – a spy’s reflection on the death of clarity in modern conflict

But since October 7, 2023, it feels as if the entire informational ecosystem has collapsed under a tidal wave of noise. I’ve never seen so many people scream and tweet and chant and repost without any regard for logic, facts, or history. Emotion has not just trumped reason, it has obliterated it.

The tragedy is not that people are choosing sides; it’s that they’re doing so blindly, ferociously, and with such utter detachment from fact. The battle isn’t just on the ground anymore, it’s for the mind. And most people are losing that battle without even realizing they’ve been drafted into it.

What used to be propaganda is now performance art. What used to be journalism is now tribalism. What used to be analysis is now algorithm.

Almen Dean

Samizdata quote of the day – Never ever trust the French

Never ever trust the French and I am not saying this to be mean or edgy.

Many seem to have fallen for Macron and France’s theatrics and rhetoric in recent years.

France has always seen itself as a superpower and always will, and it wants to wield influence and play a dominant role in European and global affairs.

It is not going on endlessly about Ukraine and Europe out of a sense of charity or a desire to do the right thing, but rather because it wants to exploit recent developments in order to take the lead and exert greater influence.

France wants a stronger European security architecture precisely because it believes it can exert influence over it to serve its own interests.

Historically, France has always been reserved about its NATO membership and American dominance in the alliance because it wants to do things its own way and, ideally, maintain its influence.

– ‘Terrorism Guy‘ – National Security Adviser to the Internet 😀

Samizdata quote of the day – the British state has learned nothing since 7/7

As Ferguson’s law states, any great power that spends more on debt servicing than on defence risks ceasing to be a great power. While defence spending is expected to total £56.9 billion in 2025, debt interest is almost double that at £104.9 billion — comprising 8.2% of total public spending. All of this is to say that Army personnel would be vastly outnumbered by the Jihadists already monitored by foreign intelligence and MI5, plus those awaiting release in British prisons, and emigrating through legal and illegal means. Thanks to successive governments’ failure to prepare for this eventuality, and their exacerbation of the problem through permissive immigration policies, Britain is on the brink of the barbarians within its gates putting all we love to the torch.

Connor Tomlinson

Samizdata quote of the day – From Republic to Mob Rule

Mexico is inching closer to a Venezuelan-style autocracy. Consider the case of María Oropeza, who was forcibly abducted in Venezuela by armed men without due process. Her crime? Sympathizing with the opposition. That’s the future Mexico risks: where justice is not blind, but partisan. Some dismiss these warnings as exaggeration. But as Adam Smith observed in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, people often ignore distant tragedies until they arrive at their doorstep.

Sergio Martinez