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 quote of the day – from Romantic Solipsism to Societal Fracture In geology, efforts to “decolonise the curriculum” involve challenging Western epistemologies, potentially diluting rigorous methodologies with subjective narratives. A UK study on science teaching staff revealed the dangers, with some fearing it undermines core scientific principles. By prioritising “diverse ways of knowing” over empirical validation, we risk equating myth with method, dooming students to a fragmented worldview where chaos reigns. This isn’t empowerment; it’s intellectual sabotage, ensuring no stable basis for societal flourishing.
– the inestimable Gawain Towler
Read the whole thing.
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Consider political discourse: debates over climate change, gender, or economics devolve into emotional standoffs, where “lived experience” trumps empirical data.
It is an interesting piece which definitely made me think. But I do think it misses something important captured in this quotation. The problem is simply our source of truth, or our source of empirical data, is utterly compromised. For sure the scientific method is the best truth telling mechanism we have yet discovered, but the whole edifice of science is deeply compromised. When it comes to politics and the science of statistical analysis, the simple fact is that you can find a “study” to support pretty much any viewpoint you want. And our education system is such that very few people have the analytical skills to understand the biases and misalignment that arise out of that subtle branch of mathematics, statistics.
And further that whole scientific establishment has further been compromised by the deep involvement of players with a vested interest in an outcome independent of the data. And of course, far and away the biggest offender here is the government — from which the gigantic portion of science funding comes.
So rather let these things go back to private companies where it can be tested in that real crucible of truth telling — the free market — where people use their money to judge what is for their benefit or not.
So the problem is twofold, on the one hand people seek to validate their own “truth”, which is something people have mostly done for all of history, and secondly the ability to actually determine the “truth” for an honest seeker is deeply clouded in the whole mess of it all.
Throughout history people have always sought to believe that which it is beneficial for them to believe, irrespective of the facts. But also throughout history there have always been people who stood up and said “These are the facts, here I stand, God help me I can do no other.” But these brave souls more and more are drowned out by the ocean of voices that bombard even the most motivated truth seeker from every side.
The UK Met Office is a perfect example. Now dedicated to the dissemination of lies and propaganda while accusing critics of spreading disinformation.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/10/25/met-office-admit-climate-records-are-junk/#more-89201
The left establishment invert the truth – they say “decolinise” when they mean “colonise” – crush British (and other Western) culture, and replace it with other cultures – indeed other population groups. That is not “decolinising” that is “colonising”.
An example of this was seen in Tower Hamlets (an area of London) a couple of days ago, where large numbers of black clad (uniform wearing – which is illegal in a political demonstration) Islamic men, wearing masks (wear a mask on an ANTI immigrant protest and you are arrested by the police and punished by the courts – but if the other side wear masks the “Two Tier” authorities do NOT arrest and punish them) and blocked the street by sitting down in it on-mass (another offense – but the police did nothing) chanting Islamic slogans – they also flung fireworks and flares and attacked the Town Hall – no arrests from the police (if you, gentle reader, did these things you would be in prison so fast your feet would not touch the ground).
A leftist went up to the gathered warriors of Islam and said “we are on the same side brother” – “no we are not” a follower of Islam, politely (and correctly) replied – the left (with their “feminism” and their “LGBTQ…..”) have a shock coming – the forces of Islam in Western Europe do not really need the left any more.
As Fraser Orr and Stonyground have pointed out in support of Gawain Towler’s article – the left establishment have abandoned both evidence and reason – in everything from economics to temperature figures.
Only their political and cultural agenda matters to the left establishment – truth in evidence and logical reasoning in argument, mean nothing to them – indeed they, privately, deny that objective and universal truth even exists – other than “power relations”, the left establishment hold up “exploitation and oppression” and the supposed need for them (the left establishment) to have total, absolute, power (and crush all dissent) to, supposedly end this “exploitation and oppression” as the only truth.
However, let us be of good heart – pro freedom forces have done well in the Congressional elections in Argentina, in the teeth of a massive international media campaign against President Milei and his pro liberty supporters, and the international Corporate State media, such as “France 24” are very upset.
This is good.
Borges has never been more relevant.
This is a pretty good translation (not my opinion but that of a Mexican logician and Borges fan of my aquaintance) of what I think is the most profoundly important of the Ficciones of the great Argentinian writer.
Everyone ought to read it. It was published in 1940. The 1947 postscript is a deliberate anachronism which is fitting considering the narrative is about the denial of reality. To my mind this story is more important than anything Orwell wrote.
PS Borges knew Peron. They seriously did not like each other. Fortunately Borges was too well known to be killed.
Fraser,
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” – Disraeli (dsiputed).
Statistics abuse is frequently difficult to diagnose. It requires context, skill and an understanding of the principles of the issue. Data without a theory is meaningless. Statistical data even more so.
Here’s an example. How many tests did the US Army do with nuclear bombs before they hit Hiroshima? How many patients do you need in a drug trial?
NickM – the Peronists got their backsides handed to them yesterday, good-and-hard.
As for Disraeli – he was not “into” facts, whether mathematical facts or non mathematical facts.
This was shown, for example, when he was questioned about his Housing Bill – he had no idea what was in the Bill. What mattered to Disraeli, as to “Social Reformers” in general, was presenting himself as a “friend of the poor” – like most “Social Reformers” Disraeli did not give a toss if his specific measures did good or HARM.
There is an historical back-story to the Marxist (and general leftist) rejection of facts and rational argument – they did NOT just wake up one morning and say “reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions” (no I am not saying that Mr Hume was leftist) – there were specific reasons WHY the left rejected facts (evidence) and logical reasoning.
Marxism is partly a theory of history and partly a theory of economics – and both its historical theory and its economic theory is WRONG, flat WRONG.
The Marxist theory of politics is bound to its class-war theory of history – a theory which is WRONG, for example Dr Karl Marx himself was asked what “class” the government of Napoleon III of France (one of the most important nations on Earth at=that-time) represented – and Dr Marx could give no rational answer, in the end he just blustered that it represented the “lumpen proletariat” – the criminals and beggers, but this insult should not be allowed to obscure the basic point that Dr Marx had-no-rational-answer.
Napoleon III could not be said to represent the “capitalists” as French “capitalists” wanted Protectionism and Napoleon III was a Free Trader, and he could not be said to represent “the workers” because, according to Marxism, only a socialist regime can do that.
Louis X of France (back in the Middle Ages) destroyed slavery and (almost all) serfdom – so France clearly did not have a “feudal mode of production” (which, according to Marxism, is based on serf relations of production – supposedly caused by a certain sort of farming technology – “forces of production”) – and neither did Norway, or the county of Kent in England (ever) – the Marxist stage-theory-of-history is bunk, it is false, it is drivel, – France without serfdom did not use different technology than Prussia in the 1700s which had serfdom – technology “the forces of production” clearly does NOT determine the “mode of production”, the “relations of production” (such things as slavery or serfdom) is NOT determined by technology – it is a legal matter, often determined (as it was in Eastern Europe and Russia) by military considerations – not farming technology.
When the Emperor Diocletian tied peasants to the soil in the Roman Empire this was NOT because new farming technology (“forces of production”) had come along – it was a political and military move (nothing to do with new economic technology).
As for Marxist economics – it rests on the Labour Theory of Value, which comes from (false) musings of Adam Smith – but was fully fleshed out by David Ricardo.
And the Labour Theory of Value (like the Marxist theory of history) is bunk – it is false. Economic value is NOT determined by labour or by “socially necessary labour” – this had been pointed out when Karl Marx was still a child (by Bishop Richard Whately – but also by many other economists, German such as Gossen and Rau, Italian such as Ferrara, British such as Samuel Bailey – and so on) – and, later (the 1870s) Carl Menger utterly destroyed the Labour Theory of Value.
With the fall of the Labour Theory of Value the whole “exploitation and oppression” tap dance of Marxism falls-apart.
“Get to the point Paul!”
Very well – as Marxism is based on a theory of history which is false and a theory of economics which is false, Marxists (and the left generally – for semi Marxist ideas dominate the left) face-a-choice.
Either they abandon Marxism – or they abandon rationality.
Tragically the modern left have chosen the second alternative – they have abandoned rationality.
Showing them that the Marxist theory of history and politics is false, and that the Marxist theory of economics is false, means NOTHING to them.
They will just scream “racist!” or “ableist!” or “transphobe! Islamophobe!” or “Climate Denier – Covid Idiot!” or something else, and continue to demand that total (absolute) POWER be in the hands of the left – with all dissent utterly crushed.
Only in this way, total tyranny – totalitarianism, according to the left, can the “exploitation and oppression” be ended – and the perfect society achieved.
POWER only POWER (total and absolute) matters to them.
@NickM
Statistics abuse is frequently difficult to diagnose.
I think it is also a bit more than that. Statistics are also hard to explain and have extremely surprising results. When I look at a study, for example, saying the Trump is going to loose in Iowa, I have to explain about things like sample bias, and sample size with respect to standard deviation and margins of error, and question coloring, and survey methodology and so forth. And to most people without a fairly deep background in statistics it just sounds like either voodoo nonsense or deliberately misleading spin. But, for those who have a bit of background, the reality is that statistical results are mathematically chaotic, in the strict sense of a tiny change in parameters has a dramatic affect on the results, like the archetypal butterfly flapping its wings. So, when people just read the headline on a “study” they are reading something that is almost entirely empty of information.
There are only two ways to overcome this problem: either you have to look really carefully at the methodology (sometimes that is impossible because they don’t even tell you their methodology), or alternatively you have to get it from a reputable source who will do that analysis for you. Which of course simply loops you back to the original problem of “where can I get reliable information.”
So whenever someone says “this study proves you wrong” and gives you a link to a six hundred page paper in a web discussion, it adds exactly zero to the discussion. I have a policy of simply rejecting data like that (even if it agrees with me) and insisting the interlocutor actually gives the information directly. Not doing so is effectively cheating and dissimulating.
“decolonise the curriculum”? Well, who’s been colonising the curriculum? The SJW wokers. So, yes, decolonise the curriculuum by kicking out the wokers.
Imagine finding racism in the study of . . . geology.
bobby b,
Forget the rocks. They are already intent on de-colonising mathematics because it is all the work of dead white Euopean men. Apart from the algebra and algorithms and the Hindu/Arabic number system… Oh, and didn’t the sexagesimal system (360 degrees in a circle and all that) arise outside of Europe? Sumerians about 5000 years ago.
Fraser,
I suspect you have heard of the dihydrogen monoxide hoax? There have also been similar “campaigns” on US university campuses which had many feminists sign-up to “End the Suffrage of Women”. “Suffrage” of course sounding a bit like “suffering” and who is not against ending suffering? In the UK, “Brass Eye” gloriously lampooned the pig-ignorant glory-seeking vanity of our “betters”. The episode “Peadogeddon” famously had Phil Collins state he was talking “NONCE-sense”. I shall leave the final words to the great philosopher, Victor Reeves, “88.2% of statistics are made up on the spot”.
Paul,
I’m sure you are right about Disraeli but it is a useful quote from a man, who despite his many flaws, had a way with words. That is probably how he got to be where he got despite those flaws…
@NickM
I suspect you have heard of the dihydrogen monoxide hoax?
I think it is an interesting example. An example of why people believe things. The idea that people have constructed this logical system where all their beliefs are rooted in rational deductions and inferences based on axioms and some set of productive logic rules is completely wrong. That isn’t the way anyone thinks at all. On the contrary people believe things that they consider will benefit their lives the most.
I think the classic example is the fact than in America maybe half the population believe the universe was created in six days, after which God had a very well deserved rest. But all the empirical evidence rejects this and there is not one scrap of evidence to support it. So why do people believe it? Well it is a signal, or perhaps a submission, to the expected belief set of a community they want to be part of — namely some Bible believing community that demands the scriptures are infallible.
Why believe something so obviously wrong? It has nothing to do with logic, it is entirely a cost/benefit analysis. The cost of doing so for most people is pretty close to zero. Unless someone works in the sciences the worst they will get is a bit of ridicule, which can easily be brushed off with a “I believe the Bible not men”. But the benefits are huge — access to a community of loving people, a sense of certainty about the world, a well defined moral code, an answer for all the evil in the world, a comfort for when a loved one dies, a hope for when you die, a purpose and meaning for life and on and on. It is a pretty good bargain if that is your thing.
Some things we have to believe because they are functionally necessary. If you are a surgeon you had better believe the germ theory of disease or you will be a very unsuccessful surgeon, if you are a bus driver you’d better believe that it takes longer to stop in the snow than in the dry. But most beliefs we hold are not in that category, and so for them we chose the belief set that optimizes our place within society. We either signal or submit by believing whatever our group wants us to believe. And these are not just beliefs that are expressed to that group, but are also enforced in your own brain as part of the process of belonging.
FWIW, just to put a spin on this, if you consider the group of people here… are we any different? I’d argue that we aren’t as different as we’d like to think. Our identity, in part anyway, comes from the idea that we are logical and rational people, and so for us to have a feeling of belonging in this community the meta belief system we must subscribe to is that or logic and rationality. After all, if the only arguments I make here are emotional or spiritual, I’d quickly be laughed out of here in shame. And so, just as that Bible believer is studying his Bible to be more part of and to advance in his community, I work to hone and polish my arguments and rhetorical skills to be part of and advance within this community.
So, for sure the whole dihydrogen monoxide is a signal to yourself that you want a clean earth free of chemicals. And really, what is the cost to objecting if you are just answering some kid for his science fair project?