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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Welcome to TrumpGPT A story from this morning drives home that Donald Trump’s foreign policy (perhaps ‘policy’ is too optimistic a word) has descended into farce:
Russia attacks Ukrainian power plant hours after Trump ‘ceasefire’
Moscow strikes with drones and glide bombs despite US president’s surprise claim of an energy truce
Is there any evidence either Ukraine or Russia actually agreed to any cessation of strikes against energy targets?
When I started using ChatGPT, I encountered answers that were phrased with great certainty but were in fact ‘hallucinations’ with no basis in reality whatsoever. And by that I mean the AI invented an ice-cream parlour, with a technical description of how its ice-cream was made and a street address… which proved to have never existed and address was a parking lot in Prague.
Welcome to TrumpGPT
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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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President Trump loves talks and deals – he has done all his life and is quite open about it.
However, in politics talks and deals do not work – in politics (which is war by another name – it is based on force, the control of violence – the power of arrest and so on), you destroy your enemies, or they destroy you.
Mr Putin is not going to keep any deal he makes, whatever nice things he says on the telephone – “but is in his interests to keep the deal” – Mr Putin does not care about that, he is not a businessman. Dr Johnson said that a man is seldom so innocently engaged as when he is after money – as other motives tend to make men do far worse things than they would do just for money, and Mr Putin is NOT really after money any more – he is after power and a legacy – a legacy of conquest, to put him in the history books with previous rulers. He wants to be remembered for conquest, like Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great – Mr Putin is getting on in years and is not in good health (I know the feeling) – he wants to achieve real conquests before he dies (when one knows that natural death is fairly near, and one feels ill all the time, death “loses its sting” – one no longer fears death).
This is even more true of the Islamic Republic of Iran – many times since February this year, President Trump had the chance to destroy the IRI (and, thus, go into the midterm elections with VICTORY) – but, each time, he opted for talks-and-deals (which is his passion), not understanding that the IRI people, the Revolutionary Guard and so on, will not keep any agreement they make – and do-not-care if they, and their families, are killed – as they sincerely believe they will go to paradise and have eternal bliss if they die fighting infidels.
All this, both Mr Putin and the Islamic Republic of Iran, may be difficult for a New York Property Developer to understand – but Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State AND National Security Adviser (it is very rare for one person to have both these positions) must also be blamed – as he has guided every step of foriegn policy.
Both President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio love life – so many Americans do. And it gives them a “Star Trek” view of the world – “if we defeat our enemies – they will make peace, in the interests of themselves and their children”.
They would be shocked to learn how many people do NOT love life – indeed go to bed each night hoping they do not wake up in the morning.
Donald Trump, like his on-off friend Elon Musk, is often a jerk. Trump’s critics have a point when they compare him to a toddler. But their constant lies about him (e.g. the Russian collusion and “Fine people on both sides” hoaxes) have given him a propaganda advantage. They’ve cried wolf too often. Most people don’t have the time or the inclination to do any more than glance at a headline saying Trump has done some stupid or spiteful thing, so they assume it’s just another lie even when it is true.
In the conflict in IndoChina when the United States Air Force was allowed to do some (some – not a fraction of what it could have done) damage to North Vietnam – say with the Linebacker or Linebacker II operations, the Marxists always knew they could stop the damage (and give themselves time to recover) by agreeing to “talks” and making “deals” – ending in the farcical “Paris Peace Accords” where the Marxists made all sorts of promisies (which they did not intend to keep).
It is unfortunate that after all these years, Americans (not just President Trump – most, although not all, Westerers – British, Americans and so on) have still learned nothing – nothing at all.
By the way the “right wing” Conrad Black holds the two greatest “achievements” of President Nixon were the delusional Paris Peace Accords AND the “opening to China” – i.e. the crawling to Mao, the largest scale mass murderer in human history.
With “right wingers” like Conrad Black, or Richard Nixon, who needs the official left.
As for Israel – after three years (three years) Hamas and the other Islamic groups are still not wiped out.
And the Israelis are still in the stage of “we must give warning before we attack a specific place – otherwise we will be accused of targeting civilians”.
You are allowing the enemy to escape – again and again (for three years), and you will be accused of “targeting civilians” – indeed of “genocide”, whatever you do – you puppets of the Supreme Court, you utter fools.
So true. TDS is an actual thing, but it really does mean when he actually spouting nonsense, many people will just assume anyone pointing that out is just someone giving voice to their TDS… even when Trump really is saying something disconnected from reality.