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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Samizdata slogan of the day The government announced today that it is changing its emblem to a condom because it more clearly reflects the government’s political stance. A condom stands up to inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks and gives you a sense of security while you are actually being screwed. Damn, it just doesn’t get more accurate than that!
– Anonymous
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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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nice logo.
by the way, you all say that you are, among other things, “extropians, futurists, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cyberpunks, cypherpunks and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from North America, British Isles, Australia and Europe.”
so i thought it would be cool if you posted some other treatsies, basically defending those positions. It is easy to criticize iraq from an already established capitalist-libertarian position, but how about to defend the very notions of capitalism/several property/objectivism/etc. themselves?
see, i agree with you on them, but i always have trouble explaining them to friends. There are of course the traditional books like Locke’s that i could tell them to read. But those are often old and outdated and rely on premises such as “God gave us our body as property,” or other premises vulnerable to modern deconstruction. I know in my heart that near-anarchic liberty is GOOD, but i cant for the life of me explain it rationally…
but maybe you guys could, and could convert some people on the fence.
Big question. Actually, I don’t know if simply memorizing the explanations of others and rehashing them in arguments with your friends will help you. Memorizing without thoroughly understanding rarely succeeds on any test. Perhaps you need to hash out your beliefs a little more clearly before taking on your oh-so-confident friends.
If you already know what you believe but simply have trouble articulating it on the spot, then perhaps some practice would help. Discussion sites frequented by smart, rational people, like Samizdata, are a good place to start. Bounce your thoughts off folks and see how you’re critiqued, and whether or not you agree with that critique. Refine your thoughts that way until you’re comfortable enough with them to take it to your friends.
As for books, if you haven’t read Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged (her masterpiece), do so. (if you have, just ignore this then) Rand was the starting point for many folks of libertarian persuasion. In fact, there’s a cult of Rand worshippers that treat her as God and her writings as Scripture, but I personally believe that’s extreme, and even against the spirit of Rand’s philosophy in the first place. But her writings will nonetheless help you solidify your thoughts.
At some point with most philosophies you do just have to take a stand and say, “This is what I believe is right,” because at a certain level you have to get people to share assumptions. And if they aren’t going to share those assumptions, they won’t. You can only try.
I’m interested to know what a “recovering” neoconservative is, and what it means in a non-American context. Many neocons here in the US seem to have gone through a libertarian phase before becoming neocons, so I’m genuinely curious.
Many neocons here in the US seem to have gone through a libertarian phase before becoming neocons, so I’m genuinely curious
In my experience, many US republicans are ‘small-L’ libertarians for whom the Libertarian Party is a turn off (even more so post-Sept 11) due to their anti-survival ostrich view of the rest of the world… that does not make them neo-cons as they are usually as turned off by conservative ‘social values’ (‘freedom in the marketplace but not in the bedroom… and not actually that free in the marketplace in reality’).
The Republicans are actually three parties (neo-con, religious paleo-conservative and crypto-libertarian) who in reality have only one thing in common… dislike of the Democrats, because the Dems are:
Nice synopsis of the Republican Party, Perry.