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 – the BBC’s dangerous lies Visit BBC Broadcasting House in Central London and you’ll pass a statue of George Orwell accompanied by a quote from an unpublished preface to Animal Farm: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” When the statue was erected in 2017, the head of BBC history said it would serve as a reminder of “the value of journalism in holding authority to account”.
If only. The statue isn’t a symbol of the BBC’s journalistic excellence, but a standing reproach for its failure.
– Helen Joyce, in an article called The BBC’s dangerous lies in the print version of The Critic
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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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I dunno. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to cover your ears and chant “La la la la! I can’t HEAR you!” It doesn’t, or shouldn’t, extend to a “duty to listen.”
On the other hand, if Alice is telling Bob something that Bob does want to hear, it’s an infringement on them both for Karen to try to make Alice shut up.
Or, if freedom of speech means anything, it means your right to tell me what they don’t want me to hear.
Imagine going to work every day at the BBC, passing that statue, knowing what it stands for, and then not slitting your wrists when you reach your desk.
I wanna nitpick. “the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”. I don’t agree. it is “right to say what people do not want to hear”. Whether they listen is entirely up to them. Nobody has the right to demand your engagement. Which is especially ironic since the BBC has precisely that right by virtue of their legal right to force people to pay for their microphone regardless of whether they want to hear what the BBC has to say.
It really is a loathsome organization, a horrendous anachronism from a time long past.
How did we go from John, Pete and Val and “get down Shep”, to Pravda and tyranny?
But the BBC are good at giving murderers the amplification, fame, and encouragement they want. Top of the world, Ma!
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly97ervz1zo