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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Add PayPal to the list of Big Tech trying to limit what people can say Over the weekend PayPal informed us that they would no longer be willing to process payments for us due to “inappropriate content”. What this actually means is “we dont believe in your political opinion” both yours, and my own.
– Continental Telegraph
So even worse than the situation with Creative Destruction.
And in an era when it is rapidly becoming harder and harder to use physical cash, anyone who says “oh but PayPal is a private company…” yeah, so it Visa, American Express & MasterCard… good luck functioning at all in the modern world without at least one of them, and they too are doing the sort of thing PayPal has been doing. Just ask Gab.com.
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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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Suggested reading:
https://www.amazon.com/Dictatorship-Woke-Capital-Political-Correctness/dp/1641771429
The book connects the dots between the French postmodernists and business school theories on morality and profits.
The time is rapidly approaching for me to come out of retirement and write a blockchain payment processor.
What happens if you email Woke BigTech companies chastising them for their racism, Islamophobia, and sexism, since you are a gay Muslim transsexual?
You could add neuro-atypical, vegan, and fat as well if you want to just spin all the wheels at once.
What is happening with these corporations is simple: democracy. Specifically, the Mob Rule inherent to democracy/constitutional republic is incentivizing Corporations to ally themselves with the Globalist Woke Left. This process is accelerating dramatically now due to the direct and indirect consequences of the internet.
Let me quote a comment from someone else who posted on Samizdata from 2017.
https://www.samizdata.net/2017/10/samizdata-quote-of-the-day-940/#comment-740832
Ya. It’s time to roll the dice.
Do you enjoy being a court jester for social democracy/constitutional republics? I sure as fuck don’t.
We need a strong man leader who makes Viktor Orban look like an innocent school girl.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw_R0Jf-AZc
In news related to the OP, Patreon recently removed an independent journalist by the name of Whitney Webb from its platform. Why? Because she would not remove something.
1. That something was not on Patreon, but was on her own personal website
2. That something included only facts – none of which were false. Patreon did not even claim any of the facts in the article was false.
Patreon removed Whitney Webb from its platform because she would not remove an article from her personal website that reported FACTS. Patreon’s reasoning was that the article might discourage people from taking the COVID vaccine.
Let that sink in for a moment.
I don’t know how much time we have, but the longer we wait the stronger that strong man would have to be to make any fucking difference to the creeping dystopian Woke SJW NWO slowly destroying our freedom to think out loud – or even report facts inconvenient to powerful forces.
Her site:
https://unlimitedhangout.com/
Two main tweets about it:
https://twitter.com/_whitneywebb/status/1369697440971042825
https://twitter.com/_whitneywebb/status/1369711517743144964
OT, but maybe not. I tried access Chicagoboyz through Commentary and get “access denied”. HELP
Ira epstein: I haven’t been able to get Chicagoboyz all day. Certificate issues, it says.
I still fail to see how you avoid Kamela Harris or B Obama being that strongman.
bobby b,
You are still blaming the player instead of the game, I see.
Obama, Kamala, Bush, Clinton, whoever – they are just owned by the lobbyists, the special interests, the federal bureaucracy, the deep state, the big donors, the big corporations, the media etc. AKA the entire system, which only wants more government, more government power, more government spending, more intrusion into private lives, etc. This isn’t efficient. A KING WOULDN’T WANT THIS because the King would own the country and want efficient use of state power and state energy and state $ instead of wasting it on bullshit bureaucracy. I could go on and on and on.
I could write a book worth of comments here listing all the things I think you are misunderstanding about WHY government is growing unchecked. But instead, let me just ask you:
If Bill Clinton had just simply been crowned Absolute King and granted total power over all of America in 1992, do you think we would have more or less de facto freedom today in 2021 than we do in reality? If you say less then you just have no fucking idea what’s happening to America. Clinton just wants to live a life of luxury, be a popular celebrity, have power over other people, and bang lots of women. Who gives a shit?
These elections are destroying our freedoms. This is a fact.
bobby b,
This is exactly what you would have said to me in 1980 but instead of Obama your example would be Jimmy Carter.
In a few decades you will be wishing that we could replace the POTUS of 2050 with an absolute monarch with the views of Barack Hussein Obama. Mark my words.
You (and other readers/lurkers here who disagree with me – and I suspect its mostly everyone who disagrees with me) need to think bigger picture. Use your imagination more. I am sure you have thought about why government grows. Think more about it please. Really think. Maybe I’m wrong about everything, but if I’m right – how would you know?
We face a collective action problem so massive in scale it is almost incomprehensible. It is an INHERENT collective action problem.
Our constitutional republic is gradually decimating our de facto and de jure freedoms slowly, gradually into dust because of this inherent collective action problem – the collective action problem is endemic to constitutional republic/democracies. We need a schelling point. The strong man leader functions as a sort of schelling point. Obviously a hereditary monarchy is much superior to a strong man leader but we have no other choice.
These elections are destroying our liberty, our culture, our norms, our economy, and our personal freedoms.
The longer we wait the stronger the strong man leader would need to be to save us.
@bobby b
I still fail to see how you avoid Kamela Harris or B Obama being that strongman.
I think this is a very important point, and in a sense raises the underlying issues. In a free market system PayPal et al would pay a price for their choices. However here is the terrifying truth — their failure to do so is not so much a failure of the market, but a failure of the customers. The problem is very few people care about things like freedom of speech, surprisingly few people are offended by the Woke corporations choices, and rather too many strongly support their stance.
A free republic of free people can’t stand if the large majority don’t want one. And I fear that Covid has been the final thing that broke the dam.
So the blame is not, in a sense, with PayPal who are in many ways reacting to what their customers want. And that is the most worrying thing of all.
BTW, I am aware of the structural advantages big corporations have, and how in bed they are with the government. But they still respond to customer pressure, and the large bulk of customer pressure is not on the side of liberty. I fear this is not monopolies breaking down causing failures of the free market but rather the free market responding to the petty tyrants who roam the grocery store watching for any unsanitized handshake, slipping mask or “offensive” comment on which they may leap.
Shlomo, and others- Democracies come in various types. I propose that our Democracies be called ‘Mandatocracies’, because Democracies expand by claiming a mandate from the voters to expand, and this is conferred on them by the promises made by the politicians who won. We need Democracies where politicians don’t get elected by making promises, and thus can’t claim a mandate to expand governments. I prefer one that I call Meridocracy- share power. All who choose to be citizens would work part-time for 11 months of the year as a volunteer fire-fighter, or militia, etc., and would then be the local government for 1 month, reviewing all laws. If you needed a member to visit a neighbouring county (or Canton), the eldest could automatically be given the right to represent you. Democratic societies without professional politicians. Any others?
@Fraser
There, I fixed it for you.
PayPal and other woke corporations are run by the woke and rely on a small vociferous minority to masquerade as the majority to back them up to the shareholders. Most people don’t care enough to notice, but would say that want one (a free nation of free people).
That’s why I tell friends and family about these events. The usual response is “Surely not? That’s stupid”
Shlomo Maistre
April 6, 2021 at 11:47 pm
“What is happening with these corporations is simple: democracy.”
____________
But we don’t have/never have had democracy. The purpose of democracy is to prevent the concentration of power so no one individual or group… whether majority or minority… can hold it and use it to impose their will on the rest. Where do you see that/have you ever seen that?
To the extent we have had democratic flavoured government for a couple of centuries, this was due to limited central government, poor communications, competition between Countries.Welfare Statism and the global network of governance has accelerated State intrusion in society & economy, and global ‘cooperation’ has removed inter-Country competition.
As power concentrates to the international level, we shall be governed by big businesses and NGOs, none of whom anyone voted for or can vote out. There will be nowhere to escape to.
Exhibit A: CoVid hysteria and gross abuse of fundamental Human Rights Worldwide. Exhibit B: European Commission, totally unelected by, totally unaccountable to, yet ruling 600 million people even down to what they can eat, think, which light bulbs they can use.
Not wise to use Paypal anyway.
The legal protections you get when you pay by credit card do not apply.
John B,
Who is “we”? You don’t think America is a constitutional republic? What I said in full was: “What is happening with these corporations is simple: democracy. Specifically, the Mob Rule inherent to democracy/constitutional republic is incentivizing Corporations to ally themselves with the Globalist Woke Left.” Yes, you can say there is a difference between democracy and constitutional republic. And you are right. My point still applies to both.
Nope, the purpose of democracy is for the will of the people to be represented by force of government.
Part of the purpose of the US Constitution is to afford certain rights in the form of legal protections to individuals. How has this been working out?
Let me quote a comment from someone else who posted on Samizdata from 2017.
https://www.samizdata.net/2017/10/samizdata-quote-of-the-day-940/#comment-740832
Democracies and constitutional republics are where liberty, individual rights, and small government go to die. Slowly, gradually overtime. Democracy or constitutional republic is a peaceful civil war, an organized struggle over the distribution of wealth, a system that inherently divides society into factions competing for resources, institutionalizes distrust, and magnifies the scale of the collective action problems that confront any leader of a complex system or country while simultaneously removing the power of the authorities to permanently resolve said collective action problems.
Louis 14th, Frederick the Great, Joseph II of Austria, Augustus, Pinochet, Franco, Hapsburg Dynasty, Charles V, Suleiman I, Meiji, Catherine the Great all great leaders.
I have a different reading of history than you do and than most people here. Certainly way outside the mainstream. In general, I largely agree with most of what Curtis Yarvin (Mencius Moldbug) has said.
https://www.amazon.com/Gentle-Introduction-Unqualified-Reservations-ebook/dp/B011DPHUE4
I could also link to dozens of comments I have made on Samizdata over the years.
Insofar as sovereignty is centralized, so will the liberty of the individual, all else equal, be protected de facto.
https://simple.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_England
A sovereign and a subject are two clean different things, indeed.
In a stable society (AKA a society in which sovereignty and power are CENTRALIZED in one person) we would be able to easily prevent this from happening – and we would already be doing so. Instead, we are powerless to protect ourselves.
Do it sir!
Seriously naive: the hope of the bloke on the big white horse who will save the day. It seldom ends well.
Nailed it.
Johnathan,
Is the question whether it “ends well” or is the question whether it “ends well enough compared to the alternatives we are presented with right now to give it a try”?
We probably disagree on both questions for a variety of reasons – particularly different interpretations of history and different understandings of where de facto liberty comes from (I think it comes from a combination of culture and stable and secure centralized sovereign authority).
Maybe you think it ends well 10% of the time and ends well enough compared to the alternatives we have available now to give it a try only 20% of the time. Maybe I think it ends well 25% of the time and ends well enough compared to the alternatives we have available to us right now to give it a try 75% of the time.
Perhaps the time has come to roll the dice? Overton window has been moving to the left for decades and centuries. Overton window moves only left in democracy/constitutional republic/constitutional monarchy.
How far left does the Overton window need to go for us to agree that it’s time to roll those damn dice?
I’m not rolling a dice for a “strongman”. Any fair reading of history and its lessons points to the follies of that. You hope for a benevolent dictator like the boss in Singapore: that’s a long shot.
Capitalism does not rest on thin air – it rests on a certain culture, basic principles.
It was the genius of the Frankfurt School of Marxism from the 1920s onwards to understand this – and to seek to UNDERMINE the culture that capitalism rests upon, destroy the foundations of capitalism and you destroy capitalism.
But the Frankfurt School Marxists were not the only people to understand this – the British Bloomsbury Group and the Fabians (and the Cambridge Apostles – following Plato’s example in more ways than one) understood this – they just did not write about it in so formal away. And the French Postmodernists (much later) understood all this as well.
But even as late as the 1960s Business School was a sanctuary from all the above – when a young Donald John Trump was at Wharton in the 1960s he was not taught about “Social Responsibility” “Social Justice” and how Freedom of Speech is really “Repressive Tolerance” (Herbert Marcuse – Frankfurt School Marxism).
But it recent decades this stuff has started to flow into the Business Schools – they are no longer sanctuaries from it.
So, yes Tucker Carlson, we get airlines (such as Delta) hiring pilots on the basis of race and sex – NOT ability. And Air Traffic Control – and so on.
So PayPal does not want to do business with “Reactionaries” – because they are “racists” (even though they are not), “sexists”, “transphobes” and all the other “ists” and “phobes” that offend the Frankfurt School Marxist beliefs of Big Business.
And any Corporation that stands AGAINST Collectivist “Woke” (Frankfurt School Marxist) doctrines, will not have a high “ESG” (Environment, Social Justice and Governance) score – so the Federal Reserve and the American banks will restrict its CREDIT (the life blood of modern business – in this debased economy).
The Federal bureaucracy and the Big Business bureaucracy are taught the same (utterly evil and destructive) doctrines in school and university – yes President Barack Obama created “ESG” scores, but they were most likely inevitable in some form or other.
The cultural decline of the West is horrible to watch – the Western world is dying and it is not a natural death.
The West is being murdered.
“But they, the Corporate high ups, must know it is all evil madness”.
Sometimes they DO.
For example, Jeff Bezos (Amazon) knows it is all evil madness – he does not believe a word of it. He knows that most of the stuff in his own “Washington Post” is lies and lunacy.
And he goes-along-with-it-anyway.
“I am very rich – but if I do what they want, they will let me alone”.
Those thoughts should be carved on the tombstones of rich cowards – but I doubt they will get tombstones, must likely their remains will be thrown in ditches.
The “Rednecks”, the white-male-heterosexual-working-poor who do not really care that they are poor and other folk are rich, have saved the rich many times in the past (most combat service is by the “Rednecks”) – but there are not so many of them, relatively, as there were in the past. And why should they keep saving people who HATE AND DESPISE them anyway? And the “Woke” rich (or the rich who PRETEND to be “Woke”) also hate black or brown people (male or female, straight or Gay) who have “reactionary capitalist” attitudes – rather than supporting “noble” Collectivism.
Big Business does not want to be saved – they show fanatical hatred for anyone trying to save them.
Fair enough. Big Business thinks it will, in Saint Simon or Klaus Schwab fashion, control the future Collectivist society.
Perhaps they will – or perhaps they will end up dead bodies discarded in ditches.
@Fraser Orr
Luckily, the virtue signallers are hypocrites. They are not willing to alter their lifestyle in support of the ideals they claim to support. Importantly, they spend their money in a way that undermines their alleged mission. This is good for us, because it means as long as capitalists can find a corner of the world to operate their businesses, and export their products and services across the world using decentralised payment systems, the free market still has the ability to triumph over the legislative tyranny of collectivist regimes.