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 – 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