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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 quote of the day – a spy’s reflection on the death of clarity in modern conflict But since October 7, 2023, it feels as if the entire informational ecosystem has collapsed under a tidal wave of noise. I’ve never seen so many people scream and tweet and chant and repost without any regard for logic, facts, or history. Emotion has not just trumped reason, it has obliterated it.
The tragedy is not that people are choosing sides; it’s that they’re doing so blindly, ferociously, and with such utter detachment from fact. The battle isn’t just on the ground anymore, it’s for the mind. And most people are losing that battle without even realizing they’ve been drafted into it.
What used to be propaganda is now performance art. What used to be journalism is now tribalism. What used to be analysis is now algorithm.
– Almen Dean
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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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This may well be true of our current situation. And yet you can argue that rationality was never deeply embedded in our lives. Tribalism, cults, and mobs have always been there, waiting. Personal feelings and preferences have always been stoutly defended and the way we choose our directions in life.
DJ,
Very true but now it is fashionable to just blame the internet for everything. Hence the obsession with kids and “screen time”.
This from the guy who says it’s all the Druze’s own fault?
I saw the videos Hamas took of October 7. I’ve known which side I was on since then. The numerous assholes jumping in with flying spittle only make me more sure. The whodunnit bombing statistics don’t help. It’s a pity the assholes are tarnishing my view of the non-assholes, but every time something like this happens — to Jews — Television shows me little old Muslim ladies ululating in joy and waving flags over the raped and mutilated corpses of Israeli women, my opinion of the non-asshole percentage of Islam goes down just that bit more.
It’s just like I felt about Pearl Harbor: FAFO. As you sow, so shall you reap.
Ellen,
Those videos are dreadful. What really got me though was a lot of footage was filmed by the scum on the phones of their victims so it was really easy to upload it to social media for the victim’s friends and family to see. They probably expected to see their loved one having fun at a music festival but what they saw was something else. It is beyond horror. It is what Morgoth did to Hurin.
A lot of the problem is the way safetyism isolates people from the consequences of their own actions. People have spent their whole lives doing stupid things in the certain knowledge that life will carry on as normal, regardless. Either it is someone else’s job to avoid hurting them, or there will be a guard rail to keep them from falling to their death.
So who needs facts? They just get in the way of following the latest fashion, and it’s not as though any of it really matters …
I read the post – and was unsure about it, so I clicked on it and read the full X post – and I am still unsure about it.
This man may indeed be a hero who risked his life – but I do not trust MI6 or the people who work for them.
Quite so, but it’s an interesting article regardless
Along with the ululating grannies there are always individuals pointedly handing round plates of celebratory “sweetmeats” which is a bit of a puzzler considering they’re all supposed to be starving thanks to the evil Jews.
At least in a British context, what side someone is on in relation to Israel and Gaza is normally (not always – but normally) the same as what side someone is on in Britain itself.
Normally if someone is pro the forces of Islam in Britain, they will support them in Gaza as well – and, normally, if someone is against the forces of Islam in Britain they will oppose them in Gaza as well. And, it should be pointed out, that many of the supporters of the forces of Islam in Britain are NOT Muslims – they are leftists (the so called “Red/Green” alliance) – their support for the forces of Islam is NOT based on love of Islam, it is based on hatred of Britain – and hatred of Western civilization generally.
The left establishment (for they influence most institutions) still officially believe in creating a wonderful new society – but it is becoming increasingly obvious that all they really believe in is destroying what is left of Western society – they do not really care what (if anything) replaces it.
By the way – this is why the wars of America and Britain in the Islamic world from 2001 onwards did-not-make-sense.
Were these wars against Islam? “NO!” Mr Blair and Mr Bush passionately declared – the aim of the wars was to help “true Muslims” against evil people who had “twisted and distorted” Islam.
To anyone with some understanding of the teachings and actions of Muhammed and his followers, it was clear that what Mr Blair and Mr Bush (and so on) were saying, was ludicrous nonsense.
@Paul,
What other choice did they have?
They were already hamstrung by political correctness, even then. Any other action would have brought the mau-mau-ers out of the woodwork braying for blood. The Middle East would have exploded in rage. Russia and China would have twisted the knife in, citing hypocrisy in Western claims about liberty and freedom of religion.
That said, maybe they could have said it another way, rather than the hamfisted approach we saw.
The Wobbly Guy.
War “101” – if you have no plan for VICTORY, then do not attack.
And they, the Western establishment, had no clear plan for victory – so the wars were a vast waste of resources and human lives.
The whole idea of a population of good people who followed a “true Islam” that we were helping against a few bad guys who had “distorted and perverted the peaceful religion of Islam” was a lie.
It was a vast lie – which meant that the wars were doomed to DEFEAT and that lots of brave men (American, British and so on) died for nothing.
I will not forgive the Western establishment for that – no one should forgive them.
Meanwhile look at who the candidates of the Democratic Party are for Mayor of New York City and Mayor of Minneapolis.
Do these candidates follow a “peaceful Islam”? And look how the Red/Green (socialist and Islamic) alliance is operating.
It is clear that it is not “just” many Western European nations that are being subverted.