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

SAGE minutes make it clear that the public was explicitly petrified in order to ensure compliance with lockdown. Mind-control is objectionable in itself, but has a real cost in lives: before a policy lever like lockdown was pulled, where was the cost/benefit analysis, or was SAGE only thinking of covid-19? Lockdown, after all, affects not just this thing over here (covid-19) but also that thing over there (cancer, cardiac, sepsis, etc.).

Through lockdown, A&E cardiac admissions have been as much as 50% down, so around 5,000 people per month have not been turning up at hospital with heart attack symptoms; heart attacks outside hospital have only a 1-in-10 chance of survival. Same story with strokes. And downstream, many cancers are touch-and-go even if you catch them early; give them a two month head-start and Stanford’s Professor Bhattacharya estimates the impact of urgent cancer referrals running 70% below normal levels will be around 18,000 deaths.

Alistair Haimes

23 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Mr Ecks

    As I said before UK’s political scum need to be punished and not just financially.

    Boxing Booths are the ideal method.

  • Nullius in Verba

    What I don’t understand is how we can seriously have people writing articles saying the equivalent of “Why do we have these stupid rules against driving the wrong way down the motorway at 120mph blindfold and blind drunk? The statistics show virtually nobody ever dies drunk driving blindfold at 120 mph the wrong way down the motorway. The expert predictions of disaster if we should do so are thus proved wrong!” and nobody seems to find it even mildly strange. OK, so this is the internet. But they’re quoted approvingly by sensible people at all the best parties, as if this amazing insight was the wisdom of the sages.

    I don’t understand people.

  • Phil B

    Mr Ecks

    Boxing Booths are the ideal method.

    Nope – cage fights with a couple of tigers thrown in just to spice up the action – a bit like the Arena scene from Gladiator.

    Can’t see the BBC televising it somehow. It would not conform to their guidelines. Spoil Sports!

  • Itellyounothing

    BBC staff can go first…..

  • Chromatistes

    From memory, it was C Northcote Parkinson who suggested a novel method of selecting the UK’s Prime Minister. An advertisement would specify the requirements: various challenging tasks, culminating in lasting five rounds with the heavyweight champion of the world. No applications would be received. The litany of tasks would then, progressively, be relaxed, until finally a single patriot would apply. He could safely be appointed.

  • James Strong

    Which heavyweight champion of the world?
    It’s unusual that there is only one.
    The business of boxing finds it advantageous to have multiple champions.
    And some people think that the ranking system of contenders, (I coud’na evah av bin one), is not 100% honest.

  • Mr Ecks

    I reproduce below my orig email of 24th May. It is obv a beautiful dream–but it could be a reality were not the bulk of this nation as big a bunch of jellyfish as their supposed masters.

    “All 650 of them need to lose a LARGE amount of pay and pension.

    But in truth that is NOT enough. They have fucked us over and ruined many of us and our lives will be worse in many ways for decades to come because of their stupidity, arrogance and gutless hysteria. “Lessons have been learned” doesn’t cut it this time.

    They all need to suffer physically.

    The fairest way would be a boxing booth. Each of them has to fight six aggrieved constituents. One 2 min round each with 2 mins rest between bouts. If they won’t fight they get a personal interview with half a dozen unpleasant types.

    Fairness maintained by matching size etc. Fat old bags fight fat old bags etc. Rees-Mogg has to fight 6 weeds–but motivated weeds– who are determined to express their emotions. MPs opponents will be picked by lottery from economic victims of similar size and without any special skills –no boxers or MMA types.

    Any MPs who might have an edge–Raab is reputed to be a karate BB and Mercer is an ex-squaddie–will find themselves facing somewhat upgraded opponants.

    Both sides get 6 govt paid for boxing lessons. But that is all the MPs get whereas there would be time for the Public Retaliators (good name) to have another 5 or 10 private boxing lessons. Not too many–we don’t want them doing a “Scaramouche” and becoming experts–but enough so that more of their moves will be finding the mark than vice versa. There will be a ref and full medical staff and several extra attendants to “part them–they are incensed”.

    It should happen the day before a Parliamentary opening. All the London Parks could be taken over so multiple booths can get it all done in the one day. If weather nice a grand day out for the public who can get there. All bouts video’d of course.

    When Parliament opens the next day the sight of all 650 sitting there looking at each other with their bashed-up faces will go a long way towards taking the heat out of even a second Great Depression. “Yes” we can say, “no matter how bad it gets, at least those useless bastards actually paid a price, actually got some real punishment for once instead of sliding away greased by their bullshit”.

    I also suggest that as soon as each of them emerges from the booth , photos be taken of their battered mugs. To be made into a 1ft square glossy photo on a cord. For the next year each of our 650 dear friends will wear that photo around their neck in place of the usual trappings-of-tyranny ID badges.

    It should balance the national temper nicely and might even be good for the HoDross. The knowledge that they cannot behave in bungling and tyrannical fashion and hope to escape punishment will rein them in. And have a good effect worldwide on tinpot tyrants and wannabe globo-elites.”

  • Boxing Booths are the ideal method.

    Nope.

    cage fights with a couple of tigers thrown in just to spice up the action – a bit like the Arena scene from Gladiator.

    Still nope.

    What is really required is a UK form of “poena cullei”, tying them in a sack along with a cock, a dog, a monkey and a serpent then throw the lot of them into a suitable body of water, since the Tarpeian Rock is a bit far and in “Foreign”.

    Another approach would be “damnatio ad bestias”, ideally a pre-arranged night at Wembley Stadium (Thursdays are good for me), free entry, first-come-first-served. Borrow the lions and tigers and bears (“Oh My!”) from London Zoo or wherever and let ’em rip.

    Might get some better laws and better legislators after some of the worst buggers have been torn to shreds by Tony the Tiger and his mates.

  • Andrew Douglas

    I incline to Mr Ecks over the alternative – humiliation is better than death. Our appointed representative s need to understand there are real consequences to them personally for their actions or inactions, not just being booted out at the next election and finding a sinecure somewhere, and being replaced by equally self serving and useless clones.

    I would extend this principle of direct accountability to all who dip into the public purse. BBC and NHS administrators, civil servants, teachers and so on.

  • humiliation is better than death

    For the individual MP perhaps, but not for the voters…and since the happiness of a multitude of voters far outweighs the misery of one MP, I think the MP is going to have to be the loser.

    After all, “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” … “Or the one..” *Vulcan hand sign*

    Live long and Prosper!

  • Nullius in Verba

    These are all statements of what you would do, and be, if you were running the state.

    So just imagine for a moment what it would look like from here if our current rulers were exactly like you, if they did to their political enemies what you propose to do to yours.

    And that’s why revolutions so often end in blood and tyranny. That’s where the gulags and death camps and torture chambers and secret police come from. From that dark well of anger that believes the only way to rule is to make your enemies fear you, and the black horrors you will inflict on them if they dare to defy you.

    The politicians in a democracy represent the people. They’re drawn from among the people, they’re voted for by the people. Any of us can stand for election. Any of us can be voted in. That’s how we got to here. So looking at our politicians is like looking into a mirror. They reflect the society they come from. So if you want better politicians, you first have to build a better society. You have to be what you want them to be. All control begins with the self.

    So, is this really what you would prefer them to be?

  • The politicians in a democracy represent the people.

    In theory, but there has been precious little evidence of that in recent years though. The referendum and two general elections since June 2016 have highlighted the massive disconnect between the people and those who would deign to rule us (and betray us).

    Sure, the current lot are better than the last lot, but that still doesn’t make them very representative…and you can bugger off reciting “Edmund Burke’s Speech to the Electors of Bristol” – it was cant when he first uttered that tosh and it was confirmed when he abandoned Bristol for a safe seat in a rotten borough.

    So no. If you want it done properly then use technology and move us to Direct Democracy and get rid of this “representative” pish, which is just a thin veil of modesty to cover the fact that we’re still ruled by the same periodically rotating bunch of old Etonians that have been in charge since the monarch only spoke German.

  • Mr Ecks

    Face it NiV –your little dream is less likely–FAR less likely– to come true than mine.

    I presume the bulk of post is aimed at Mr Galt. Unless you are suggesting the state is going to force all 60+ million of us into the boxing booth.

  • neonsnake

    Well, this is all deliciously blood-thirsty. Why stop at politicians?

    I don’t understand people.

    “Hardly anyone dies of measles nowadays!”

    A small (thankfully) but very loud minority of people are simply contrarian, and can’t conceive of good advice coming out of government/experts/the state/insert “disdained group of choice” here.

    So they turn to spurious arguments to try to justify their toddler-tantrums at being told (or even just asked) what to do. The linked article is an example of such.

    I will however note that the increased incidence of excess deaths due to non-Covid causes is a travesty, which in the interest of fairness I will note is also mentioned in the article.

    I’ve sometimes mused that we weren’t “explicitly petrified” enough in March – ie. that if we had known the severity, maybe we’d have voluntarily locked ourselves down harder and faster, and got the R-rate down significantly faster, which in turn would have meant we’d have been able to exit lockdown much earlier, which in turn again would have meant fewer non-Covid deaths, and a lesser impact on the economy, which in turn would mean fewer job losses, leading to further further deaths, and so on ad infinitum.

    (I miss Julie from Chicago. I can almost feel the good-natured bollocking I’d have got for my grammar in that last paragraph)

    I don’t know, off-hand, how to square that musing with my statement on preventable non-Covid deaths, though.

    Very well advertised “non-Covid” wards/hospitals? Is that even practical? Could you keep Covid out of such a place? Probably not.

  • Mr Ecks

    Because of PdeH my response to your “kiss the states arse” tripe must be muted Neon–but by all means you continue to lose nigh on everything both financially and in terms of freedom by following the state’s oh-so-sound advice.

    After all them mega-deaths might arrive next week-this time.

  • neonsnake

    my response to your “kiss the states arse” tripe must be muted Neon

    Don’t fret, sunshine.

    Let me set your mind at rest and assure you that I’d have only read it in search of a much-needed chuckle anyway.

  • Runcie Balspune

    I’ve probably mentioned this before, but the rotten core of our political establishment are political parties, whilst they continue to carpetbag the system they confound democracy, allowing misrule to go unaccounted for and unpunished.

    People are fickle and tribal, political parties know this, so they control the candidates, so they control the elected.

    Exclusive political parties are the logjam, ban them and we can return to an unaffiliated “de Montfort” parliament model, candidates may have affiliations to political groupings, but once this gets under a “star chamber” selection process it would be time to send in the anti-monopolists of politics, they have to be open else they don’t stand.

    Once your representative becomes truly dependent on their electorate instead of three or four people on a quasi-tribal selection committee, they’ll soon fall into line.

  • Nullius in Verba

    “In theory, but there has been precious little evidence of that in recent years though. The referendum and two general elections since June 2016 have highlighted the massive disconnect between the people and those who would deign to rule us (and betray us).”

    You forget. 48% of the people who voted voted to stay in the EU, and that was after opinions shifted. Those people are represented too. Those people voted in representatives who represent them and their views. And when those temporarily in charge tried to do as you would, to overide the will of the electorate and impose their own preferences, they got voted out in a landslide. This is how the system works.

    It’s sometimes slow, with inefficiencies and compromises galore, but that’s what’s needed to make joint decisions in a nation where opinions are so divided. The government represents everyone, not just you.

    “… to cover the fact that we’re still ruled by the same periodically rotating bunch of old Etonians that have been in charge since the monarch only spoke German.”

    But that’s who we voted for. We didn’t have to. Nobody made us. As Farage demonstrated, anyone from anywhere can stand, and if their proposals are popular, they can indeed threaten to replace the rotating Etonians. But as subsequent events showed, we the people wanted out of the EU (barely), but we definitely didn’t want Farage’s bunch in charge. As soon as there was a rotating Etonian with the desired policy to vote for, Boris got voted in with a landslide, and Farage’s share of the vote vanished. It’s not the old Etonians who made that decision. And if we had direct democracy, exactly the same thing would happen.

    “Face it NiV –your little dream is less likely–FAR less likely– to come true than mine.”

    I agree. Your solution is Antifa’s solution. It’s the same solution Robespierre introduced, and Stalin, and Pol Pot, and Mao, and Castro. History shows us repeating the same error again and again and again. And it also says we’ve never had a libertarian state like mine, although the aspirations of the early United States comes close. So odds are, we’re going to go round the same cycle many more times.

    Revolutionaries always build the gallows on which they themselves will hang. They build a society in which those in power have the power to kill, torture, and humiliate their enemies, so that they can use it on their predecessors, and then act all astonished when the same machine is used by their successors on themselves.

    You’re absolutely right. There is indeed a good chance that your system of government will come back. But it will be the leftists of Antifa who will be in charge of it next. And in another generation, they too will hang. Revolutions keep on turning.

    “I presume the bulk of post is aimed at Mr Galt. Unless you are suggesting the state is going to force all 60+ million of us into the boxing booth.”

    Why not? Stalin and Mao did.

    The bulk of my post was aimed at the idea that Rule by Fear was a good idea. That we should put on The Boot ourselves to stamp on our enemies’ faces. That certainly includes you. But I know your opinions of old, and you know mine, so I wouldn’t have bothered to comment if it was only you.

    Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.

    We take turns wearing the boot. Authoritarians squabble endlessly over whose turn it is to wear the boot, and always imagine that when they get hold of it they will rule forever, but it is as inevitable as night following day that they will some day lose power, and then will suffer the society they themselves have built.

    The only way to avoid that fate is to teach mankind to throw away the boot. In some ways, it seems a hopeless task. The urge to dominate is hardwired in to the human soul. But the Enlightenment gives me hope, that it is not impossible.

    But at the least, I’d like you to go into the decision with your eyes open. You would build a society exactly like the one Antifa wants, and just like Antifa, even if you succeed you will be destroyed by it. Don’t act all astonished when the machine you built comes for you.

  • Revolutionaries always build the gallows on which they themselves will hang. They build a society in which those in power have the power to kill, torture, and humiliate their enemies, so that they can use it on their predecessors, and then act all astonished when the same machine is used by their successors on themselves.

    I like that. Very true. But sometimes it is not enough just to succeed, others must fail…and suffer.

    “A l’exemple de Saturne, la révolution dévore ses enfants” (trans: “like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children”)Jacques Mallet du Pan in his 1793 essay on the French Revolution

    So yes, that scaffold I build for the traitors in Westminster will likely be the place of my own demise for the crime of sending them onward. Fate, loves irony and we are doomed to be the masters of our own correction.

  • Mr Ecks

    So a shower of shite have near ruined and destroyed us–at best because they are ignorant, arrogant , cowardly , mouth-breathing hysterics who swallowed (as did you)Prof Pantsdown & the gangs Bill Gate’s bought-and-paid-for-crap. AT BEST. And who might have done so to usher in a worldwide Globo-elite precursor to Agenda 21 misery.

    But wanting to see these cunts get a little well-deserved physical distress for their scummy deeds–and this is WAY above the usual damaging and destructive level of their capers–makes me the Antifa-Christ does it?

    Well if I get what I sew a boxing booth is not the worst way to go so long as my foes suffer some as well.

    As for you NiV–evil will do whatever it likes with a jellyfish like you.

  • Fraser Orr

    @John Galt
    So yes, that scaffold I build for the traitors in Westminster will likely be the place of my own demise for the crime of sending them onward. Fate, loves irony and we are doomed to be the masters of our own correction.

    Much as we might all delight in the delicious irony or Robespierre’s end I don’t think there is all that much evidence that all revolutions consume their instigators. Castro, Lenin, Washington, Cromwell, all went on to live long and happy lives.

    BTW, regarding Robespierre’s end, I was discussing the French Revolution with my ten year old daughter and she made a very interesting observation. “Why do we say they ‘cut off his head’? Why don’t they say they ‘cut off his body’? Why beheading and not bebodying?” I shall leave you all to ponder that profound philosophical question.

  • neonsnake

    We take turns wearing the boot.

    Not true, we take turns licking the boot.

    The only question worth asking Ecks is whether he’s licking toe to heel, or heel to toe, or whether he’s having trouble deep-throating the boot. He’s not wearing it, he’s subservient to it.

    (personally, I refuse to either wear, or lick, the boot)

  • Ok, I think this comment thread is done 😉