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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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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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.