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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 – Labour’s Gagging Acts Combined with the already-passed Online Safety Act and the previously announced intention to ban under-16s entirely from social media — a ban that Prime Minister-in-waiting Burnham intends to support — these laws, enacted or proposed, look to anyone except a Labour lickspittle to be a serious erosion of the rights of the British people to access information freely and express their political opinions online.
These draconian measures bear a striking resemblance to the reaction of a seemingly very different British government to ostensibly dissimilar circumstances: William Pitt the Younger’s infamous series of repressive laws enacted during the 1790s.
Pitt’s anti-radical legislation was designed to preserve elite power, control the public narrative, and protect the lower orders from ideas — what we now call misinformation — reckoned likely to lead them astray. The intent of these laws and the fears they were enacted to allay shed considerable light on Labour’s own attempts at gagging us.
– James Martin Charlton
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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 recently bought a new microwave. I has a child-lock. I’m seriously getting pissed off with the “Think of the Children!” narrative being used to justify (enforce, really) everything under the Sun. It’s just awkward for me (and I don’t even have children!) but that is not what this is really about is it? It isn’t about control exactly. It is about enforcing an ersatz form of “self control” by reminding me every single time I heat up soup, use the internet or watch TV that I am doing this not because I am free to do so but because I am allowed to and if I “abuse” these privileges I am granter by our Great And Benevolent Lords & Masters I shall be held to account. The level of these micro-aggressions is incredible. Streaming Star Trek Voyager there were trigger warnings for everything. This included stuff that isn’t even there! Not that I would mind seeing Seven in the buff but it never happens – for shame! The media companies are terrified. And it gets weirder…The movie “Zone of Interest” which is about the home life of the commandant of Auschwitz had trigger warnings for “Alcohol and Tobacco Use”. This is because Rudolf Höss would have a glass of schnapps and a cigar after dinner. Was that really the worst thing the commandant of Auschwitz did? That really annoyed me. Rudolf Höss was a deeply evil man but not because he drank (in moderation) and had a few smokes. This is so missing the point I was beside myself. The NAZIs – some of them smoked… oh, and they did a few other bad things but that is not important children.
@NickM
I recently bought a new microwave. I has a child-lock.
FWIW, I recently bought one too and it also had a child lock. However, in the manual it explained how to turn off the childlock which was just basically a turn of a screw. So you might check that out.
Making you fight little daily battles over heating up dangerous soup or seeing a Nazi . . . smoking! . . . keeps your mind off of much more dangerous things like guns or insurrection.
The victories you will be allowed will get smaller and smaller, and you will entirely stop looking for more important ones.
Your best days of beating Gov will be when you are mistakenly given an extra uncalled-for ounce of chocolate and you don’t return it. Ha!, the Rebellion lives!
No – Pitt the Younger was trying to protect Britain from forces that were murdering vast numbers (hundreds of thousands) of human beings, mostly very ordinary human beings (mostly in the provinces – rather than in Paris which gets too much attention), in France. Censorship is wrong, including the censorship that Mr Pitt pushed, but be accurate about what he was fighting – Mr Charlton gives a false impression of what Britain, indeed the world (as the French Revolutionaries were part of an “Armed Doctrine”, which Edmund Burke compared to Islam in earlier times, that was committed to world conquest) was facing.
All doctrines, no matter how evil, should be free to argue their case – but Mr Charlton horribly downplays how evil the forces that had taken control of France, and wished to spread their evil to all nations – all over the world (they were very clear on that point), were.
I am sometimes accused of not citing books – so read William Doyle’s “The French Revolution” (first published in 1989, I believe the latest edition is 2018).
As for the “elite” – many of the elite, such as the Duke of Bedford (the Russell family) supported the French Revolution. Edmund Burke (in his “Letter to a Noble Lord”) tried to explain to aristocrats such as the Duke of Bedford that they were supporting forces that would rob and murder them, and vast numbers of other people as well, but the elite were not listening – even Mr Burke’s friend, Earl Fitzwilliam, did not understand for a long time.
In Revolutionary France dissent was punished by death – as to dissent was to reveal one’self as an “enemy of the people” – and as the late Rousseau had explained some years before (in his “Social Contract”), even the majority of the population could be enemies of the people – as the “General Will” was not the same as the “Will of All” – indeed it was even possible for 99% of the population to be enemies of the people as the true “General Will” could only really be known by the philosopher LawGiver (Rousseau himself – or someone like him).
This is why, for example, Robespierre opposed the death penalty for murder (indeed he had protested under the Ancient Regime against the Death Penalty for murder), but supported the death penalty for opposing aspects of policy – for example opposing price controls.
The murder of an individual was not as important as opposing policy (such as price controls) for to oppose policy was to oppose the General Will (again a very different thing from the “Will of All” – which is what people thought they believed, rather than than what they should believe), and to oppose the General Will (which only the Collectivist philosopher, the LawGiver, could know) was to reveal ones’ self as an Enemy of the People. Again even the majority of persons could be “enemies of the people” opposing the “General Will” and thus, in this view, be worthy of death.
As for the present British government – it is based on lies, and seeks to promote evil (like so many modern governments) – I do not deny that. But one should not slander the past.
Mr Pitt was not pushing lies – he was telling the truth, and he was not promoting evil, he was resisting evil. Although YES this does NOT justify his censorship policy.
From AI:
Now I don’t suppose Labour (or the rest of the Uniparty) propose Capital Punishment for unapproved Free Speech. But there could be consequences such as de-banking or withdrawal of services (aided by Digital ID). Digital death to preserve elite power.
NickM: I recently had a power cut, and my microwave clock was stuck on 8888. Meh, so what, there’s a clock on the wall. I tried to cook something, the panel refused to do anything. It’s one of those horrible membrane panels so you don’t know if you’ve pressed something properly or not, so BY DEFINITION< the display not responding is INSTRUCTION you to press again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder.
I was getting that I was nearly breaking my finger trying to get ther ****er to respond. I had decided, the fucker's broken, fuck it, I'll have to chuck it away. Sat down to do a web search on available products and stumbled across a page mentioning "microwave child lock". WTF? A fucking CHILD LOCK on a rfucking MICROWAVE????
It turns out that my Panasonic NN-W555E microwave REFUSES to work until the clock is set (WTF????? I DON'T CARE what the time is, I WANT TO EAT!!!!!) and also, refuses to let you set the clock until you have disabled the child lock. Which I found you released by pressing CANCEL eight times rapidly.
That's the sort of mind gurgling stupidity that would make me throw the damn thing out of the window and stamp up and down on it.
THE FIRST RULE of user interfaces is RESPOND TO THE FUCKING USER, and respond RIGHT NOW. Even if it's just to flash "don't do that" at least it's telling the user the user has actually pressed something. At the very least MOVE THE FUCKING BUTTON SO THAT YOU KNOW YOU'VE PRESSED THE FUCKING THING. No response is EXPLICITLY telling the user that the USER has done something incorrect, and to try again, try harder, try smashing it with a hammer to get SOME sort of response from it.
I think I realise now why my neighbour gave me it after she replaced it with one with a turney timing dial and push-click-pop power button.
My microwave has a turntable, the glass plate sits on a ring with three wheels to help it rotate, the little plastic wheels on the ring have eroded the ceramic surface inside the track where they follow, exposing the metal of the inner compartment, this is after less than 2 years.
My complaint to the manufacturer was dismissed as “wear and tear”, it is clearly a design fault.
And I paid a bit more for a “better” brand…
You could have just written that because none of the rest is relevant 😀
Rick Deckard – every word of the rest was relevant.
It is no good to call something evil without explaining why it is evil.
And why do you think the government (the unelected government) follows polices that it knows (it knows) the British people do not want? Policies such the promotion of mass immigration, and FORCING the new population on the old – via a series of Acts of Parliament from 1965 to 2010? It does this because it believes it is following the “General Will” – which is not the same thing as the “Will of All” (what people believe – as opposed to what they, supposedly, ought to believe).
Pitt the Younger was a patriot – he wished to save the nation from a terrible evil, the modern establishment work to destroy the nation – they are a terrible evil.
Another mistake is to say that the French Revolution “became” evil – that it started out good and turned evil.
On the contrary – the murders and robbery started from day one, for example the Bastille did not contain political prisoners and it was not “stormed”, cultists (followers of the late philosopher Rousseau) wished to steal the arms and ammunition stored in the fortress, so they promised the Governor safe conduct if he surrendered the place – when he did so he was brutally murdered, the left (the followers of the left hand path, the broad and easy road that leads to a very unpleasant place) celebrate this treachery and murder every July 14th – by killing a pig, in a public ritual.
Sadly most of the British “elite” (like the elites of other countries) were fooled by the language of the cultists, they did not grasp that the Revolution of 1789 was an eruption of evil.
Another view is that the Revolutionaries used evil means, for a good end – that would be the line of “Andy” Burnham and co.
This is also wrong – as the end (the objective) was also evil.
Discovered Joys: Now I don’t suppose Labour (or the rest of the Uniparty) propose Capital Punishment for unapproved Free Speech.
The more likely move is to ‘incentivize’ ThoughtCriminals into making use of the government’s generously provided MAID service.
(Canadian term that we’re more familiar with here in the US. Don’t know the official term for the UK equivalent.)
@Runcie Balspune
My complaint to the manufacturer was dismissed as “wear and tear”, it is clearly a design fault.
FWIW, when i bought the house I currently live in the previous owners were big into cooking and so it has a very fancy kitchen including a very fancy built in microwave. Problem is that the microwave keeps breaking down, and fixing it or replacing it is insanely expensive (like $800 expensive.) So when It was not working I went to Walmart and bought a table top microwave for I think $70. I worked amazingly great. It also had those little wheels and after a couple of years some of the covering on the inside did come off but it still works just fine.
I think this thing is a freaking miracle. My parents could never have imagined such a magical device that quickly heats up food, and it costs less than a tank of gas. Your complaint is that it had a bit of wear and tear after a few years? Maybe yours was expensive, I think my little purchase was a bargain basement price for a modern day miracle.
FWIW, in a previous life I ran a company that made consumer and b2b electronics, so I have done manufacturing of these types of product both here in the US and also in China. FWIW, it is not only much cheaper to do it in China, it is also much easier and much quicker. I have no idea how they can produce these so cheaply especially when you include the huge markups at retail (often 200%) and the costly compliance costs (can you imagine what it takes to get this through FCC 15b regs or the even more complicated EU regulations?) The one that always blew my mind were DVD players for like $50. It is a complex mix of macroscopic and microscopic mechanical systems with shockingly exacting precisions, combined with advanced and complex electronics and displays. They can’t have a bill of materials much above $15 including the PSU and all the box and manuals etc., to produce this at retail $50. How the hell do they do that?
There is a fashion in discourse, a fashion that comes from the philosopher Hegel, of saying that one needs to draw ideas from “the other side” – that there is a “thesis” and a “anti thesis”, and that mixing them produces a “synthesis” that is superior to both – and that this is how history “progresses”.
Defending Freedom of Speech in this way is a mistake – as, in reality, there is truth and there is error – and mixing the two produces a mess.
Freedom of Speech is the correct principle – but NOT because of this line of argument (which can even be found, to some extent, even in John Stuart Mill).
It is from this we get such ideas as “this was right in the past, but is wrong now” or “this has some truth in it – but has been taken too far” – both often (although not always) terrible errors.
jgh,
the first microwave my family ever owned had two dials. One set power, the other set time. We, as a culture, have forgotten simplicity in UI design.
rtaser,
The new machine washing machine I also got (I’ve had an expensive time with white goods* of late) came with an option for an extended warranty. I did not take this up not least because it had a get-out clause for “accidental damage” – a term the contract very vaguely defined.
*Is that racist?
Paul,
“fashion” applies to everything and is the most underestimated thing in all discourse on human affairs – and I’m not just talking about hem-lines or music.
It tends to cycle at a rate of 25-30 years. The mean age for first becoming a mother in the UK is 27. Odd, that!
NickM
At the art shop I look after there is a kettle (at the back in the staff room) – this kettle is complicated and electronic, it has no need to be so – it is an example of forgetting about the importance in simplicity in design – a principle you mention.
So it is the lock on my front door – one has to pull the handle up before one can lock the door, it is all very complicated and there is a lot that can go wrong (and does go wrong).
Again a simpler design (a traditional design) would be much better.
As for fertility – late mothers, and few children. And men like myself are also part of the problem – I have no children.
Britain like most Western nations are in the midst of slow-motion-GENOCIDE – the result of the social revolution that started in the 1960s, but which has got more extreme with the passing of time.
And anyone who thinks that mass immigration, and the natural increase (births) of these populations, is the answer to this – is a fool, or worse.