A blog for people with a critically rational individualist perspective. 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]
I wonder why it is that my dear friend Brian Micklethwait describes me as pessimist? Not only does he describe me as a pessimist but he also considers it to be a defining characteristic by the inclusion of the word 'usual'.
It mystifies me somewhat because I do not consider myself to be a pessimist. I did not say that there will be nuclear war in South Asia, I merely assert that there might be. Does that make me a pessimist? Maybe it does. In which case, how do I become an optimist? By asserting that there cannot possibly be a nuclear war in South Asia? It strikes me that optimism along those lines is the same as daring the whole world not to disappoint you. Perhaps that is what I should do.
Still, I note that Brian describes himself as '(cautiously) optimistic', a term which begs the question: why the 'caution'?
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.
The Samizdatistas are:
Editors
Perry de Havilland
Adriana Lukas
Dale Amon
Principal contributors
Guy Herbert
Paul Marks
Brian Micklethwait
Jonathan Pearce
Michael Jennings
Samizdata Illuminatus
Contributors
Alice Bachini-Smith
David Carr
Philip Chaston
Antoine Clarke
Jackie D
Robert Clayton Dean
Midwesterner
Alex Singleton
Natalie Solent
James Waterton
Scott Wickstein
Resting Contributors
Findlay Dunachie
Gabriel Syme
Hillary Johnson
Frank McGahon
Gustave La Joie
Christopher Pellerito
Sarah Fitz-Claridge
Kevin Connors
Andy Duncan
Malcolm Hutty
Natalija Radic
Dave Shaw
Walter Uhlman
Samizdata.net editors are God and God moves in mysterious ways. If you have an article, comment, rant or smart-arse rejoinder that you would like to contribute to Samizdata.net, e-mail it to us and we might publish it suitably edited. Or not.
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
