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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Observing the blogosphere… but through a thick fog methinks There is an amusing article in The Observer magazine today called The world’s 50 most powerful blogs which deigns to list our crazed (but correct) rantings here, I am pleased to say.
Samizdata is one of Britain’s oldest blogs. Written by a bunch of anarcho-libertarians, tax rebels, Eurosceptics and Wildean individualists, it has a special niche in the political blogosphere: like a dive bar, on the rational side of the border between fringe opinion and foam-flecked paranoid ranting. Samizdata serves its opinions up strong and neat, but still recognisable as politics. On the other side of the border, in the wilderness, the real nutters start.
Least likely to post ‘I’d say it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other’
Such lists are of course highly subjective and whilst I am happy to see Samizdata numbered amongst new media’s Golden Horde, there is a howling error, indeed it is a glaring radioactive glow-in-the-dark omission… where the hell is INSTAPUNDIT?
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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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Well, congrats Perry, Dale, Adriana…
But, I would say it’s a fairly odd list. Did I see Daily Kos? LGF? Guido?
And BoingBoing at number 2?
I think some hack just used technorati or something. I mean Boing Boing is huge but influential? That influential?
And why do I get the idea that the hacks hadn’t really read SI.
there’s a hell of a lot missing
the above and freep, volock, du and im, powerline……
Typical Grauniad. They manage to mis-spell LOLcat. Which really takes some doing. 😀
Well done chaps and chapesses.
We always knew you had it in you.
Best wishes,
Cats
Q: Just how desperate is the Guardian to drum up website hits?
A: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/09/blogs
List is worthless without Instapundit. I mean really, he’s top five. I want to argue he’s number one, but there is no InstaYearly convention, nor has he brought down Dan Rather. He might win for smartest blogger though….
Er, DB-dude, that’s the same link that’s in the article above
I am clearly massively out of touch. Only heard of about five of them.
Oooh Bona Mr ‘Orn!
I always wanted to be a Wildean individualist!
But my mum could never get the wool.
Congrats Perry and crew. It is nice to be noticed at least in the multiverse that are blogs these days.
But lists are silly.
I refused to do them year on year in the rock n roll business.
Memo to self:
Write more, write more interestingly. Have to keep the Samizdatista banner flying high.
Er Albion-dude, that was my point.
“On the other side of the border, in the wilderness, the real nutters start.” According to The Observer.
Not quite sure how to take that. I’m not faking crazy.
It was a un-thought-out list from a poor publication.
I expected the snearing at conservative blogs (although it missed out most of the main ones), but I expected the Observer people to at least list the man blogs on their side.
However, they failed. Not only, as Nick points out, did they miss out the Daily Kos, they also missed out Move On.
Still I suppose it tells us that Observer writers are ignorant as well as wrong headed.
To be branded a nutter by those corrupt statists at the Groan is a compliment. I am genuinely impressed.
The omission of Glenn Reynolds is nevertheless bizarre. These guys clearly have no idea or are just biased.
Maybe Samizdata could start a list of the most misleading, inaccurate and biased newspapers.
Memo to self:
Write more, write more interestingly.
Yes, I probably should too.
Huffington Toast? For aggregates , you’d think NZ Bear, Kos, PJ Media, Red State and TCS as having more legitimacy, wouldn’t you?
Considering his take down of Dan Rather, AP photoshopping, the Green Helmet Guy and the woman Lebanon who kept having her houses destroyed in Lebanon according to the Beeb, Mr. Johnston over at LGF should have gotten a mention as well.
To be branded a nutter by those corrupt statists at the Groan is a compliment. I am genuinely impressed.
No. Branded not a real nutter. Branded a house on the borderlands. That’s actually quite a nice brand to have.
Since they occasionally pay me to write scraps, I’m certainly not going to complain. Lionel Shriver seems to be the most libertarian-inclined of their paper columnists, though.
Darn. We’re on the ‘rational’ side of the border? Does that mean I have to wipe the spittle flecks off of my screen?
More seriously guys, the qualifier is ‘powerful’. Not ‘popular’, not ‘news breaking’, not ‘sensational’ but ‘powerful’. Look at definition number five of ‘power‘. 5. A person, group, or nation having great influence or control over others. I doubt policy wonks ever take time to read threads at DailyKos. Same for LGF. I think this article’s authors were looking for blogs “having great influence”. Blogs that lead, not follow public opinion.
Samizdata definitely fits that description. While we are for now outside the mainstream (at least until a few more shoes drop) when ever there is anything approaching a tie in public opinion, we have a significant role in helping the tie breakers form their opinions. And then defend and advocate for them. Here the unknown and unprecedented is identified and analyzed while the doctrinaire forums are still trying to agree on what the proper dogma for it is. We have a pretty rigorous forum here. Ideas and opinions are challenged, sometimes brutally, and either rejected or embraced by others. Something unique at Samizdata compared to most blogs I’ve read (with the possible exception of Volokh) is how often minds are changed. Mine included. I routinely reserve confidence in my own opinions on some news until I’ve had a chance to see Paul put matters in a historical context and Guy put them into the contemporary context.
When I looked down that list of selected blogs, almost all of them had one thing in common. They appeared likely to change what people think and do. Whether by example or by advocacy, these blogs are likely to inspire changes in peoples’ choices and assumptions in very diverse areas. Some are frivolous and we are over at the more serious end of the spectrum. But even for what is perhaps the silliest one on the list, the LOLcats have become weapons of satire and avatars for ourselves and the people and opinions we parody. (Can you say ‘anthropomorphization’?)
Frankly, I don’t think a press agent could have written Samizdata a better ‘letter of introduction’, truthful and tantalizing at the same time. I like.
A pub on the edge of the borderlands… I like that. So lets see… Perry bartends; I do the music (and skyrockets for holidays); and a heavily armed Adriana handles the door and gives troublemakers an offer they can’t refuse….
Of course the rest of our fine bar staff are quite ready to fend off whatever the Dark Lord sends across the frontier… with the use of overwhelming firepower naturally!
Can you say ‘anthropomorphization’?)
After a good dinner, usually no 😉
Not a Brit, so I don’t know where the Observer ranks. Is it par for the course for them to label us anarcho-libertariasns, tax rebels (sounds like we’re doing something illegal), Euroskeptics, and so on?
Guys, guys. Instapundit and LGF are not blogs. That’s right. They. Are. Not. Blogs.
They’re bloody ecosystems. Any single post on LGF gets about ~100 comments in minutes of it appearing. Instapundit… well, I’m pretty sure he’d get ~x00s of comments to, if he enabled commenting.
Repeat after me. “That’s no moon, it’s a space station!” Er. Or something like that 🙂
Yes, I am being facetious. Sue me. 😉
Just for once a poll that doesn’t show Iain Dale and Guido at the top and anyone who sycophants to them in the remainder of the ‘top blogs’.