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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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More recently, Western experts have talked back military reforms, stating that they have been less successful than previously claimed. As the war in Ukraine has shown, reforms have had limited if any influence on Russian military’s operational effectiveness. In many ways, the Russian army still resembles the former Soviet army in its mentality, hierarchical structure, poor quality officers, poor levels of training, ill-discipline, poor logistics, and corruption.
The war in Ukraine pits a vertically structured Russia with a subject population against a horizontally structured Ukraine composed of citizens. During Vladimir Putin’s 22 years ruling Russia as president and prime minister
…continue How Western experts got the Ukraine war so wrong
Here is Angela Rayner MP writing in the website Labour List on 13th January 2020 and making her pitch to Labour members for the job of Leader of the Labour Party: “Leadership starts with listening – and I want to hear from you”
As a trade union organiser for most of my life, I know this isn’t done through top-down structures. Our movement’s story is of collective action to achieve change. I don’t have all the answers – no one person does. But I know a few million people who can help.
That’s why I’m asking members, affiliates, councillors, candidates
…continue Out: Labour is about collective action. I’m listening to you. In: Take the debate off social media. Only experts should comment.
I now lurk on Twitter, and more recently, also on Facebook. Today, on Facebook, via Matt Ridley, this:
Still don’t know the link etiquette when quoting social media discoveries on a blog, so no link.
Usually, the most remembered prophecies are the ones that were proved totally wrong. Metal ships will all sink, aeroplanes can’t fly, cars will never catch on in Europe because chauffeurs, and so on. But this prophecy was – pretty much – right. And what’s more it came from someone running the very business he is prophesying about. He didn’t get everything about the mobile
…continue Sometimes experts get it right!
As I work away at a talk I am to give tomorrow evening at Christian Michel’s, I am also, of course, wandering about in the www. And during the latest wandering I was provoked into thinking about another talk, one that I will be hosting rather than giving, on the last Friday of February. Marc Sidwell will, that evening, be speaking about: “Twilight of the Wonks? Promoting freedom in a post-expert world”.
This rather witty cartoon, which I came across here, is very pertinent to Marc Sidwell’s talk, I think:
This cartoon is now to be seen all over
…continue There are experts and there are “experts”
So the idea this letter represents mainstream economics must be challenged. When Sky is reporting it without an alternative viewpoint, it can mislead the public. But this also shows something interesting about the political left. People across the political spectrum like to appeal to the authority of “experts” to improve credibility. But for the left, this is crucial. Unlike supporters of markets, left-wing interventionists believe experts can direct economic activity for us. Building up the idea that “experts” support these interventions and believe they work is therefore of critical importance to obtaining public acceptance.
– Ryan Bourne, Institute of Economic
…continue When people cite experts, be careful
They are at it again. Medical experts are advising the state that they should mass medicate the population of Britain against a non-infectious disorder.
Perhaps a ‘totalitarianism’ of experts might be more accurate as Food Standards Agency seem to think it is the super-owner of the bodies of everyone in the country.
Mad cow disease (vCJD), foot-and-mouth, MMR, salmonella in eggs… the list goes on and on. The reality of life is that no one has a monopoly on insight, intelligence and information. Yet the state would have us believe that in their case when they say something, is somehow of a higher order compared to any other institution or individual. After all, it that was not the case, how could the fact the state backs its views with the threat of violence be justified?
Yet time and time again we are told in patronising tones that the state’s experts know best,
…continue The State…and its experts… do not know best
I am trying not to laugh as I watch rock musician Bono hold forth on satellite television about issues of Third World debt and so on at the World Economic Forum held in New York. Perhaps we can look forward to getting Britney Spears on the fight against terrorism, Mick Jagger on Aids and Tiger Woods on global warming. I guess I am being irreverent, but what the heck, it’s Friday!
Encouragingly, in 2025, wearing a mask in shops, leisure facilities, workplaces or on public transport is for the most part confined to a tiny minority. Alas, the exception to this return of sanity is the health and social care sector, where a few pro-mask ideologues residing in the infection control departments recurringly succeed in muzzling their staff, patients and visitors. While these pockets of fanaticism exist, there is always a danger that – fuelled by the contagion of safetyism – the imposition of mask requirements can re-ignite across all community settings. With this in mind, on this five-year anniversary of
…continue Samizdata quote of the day – Lest we forget
No one with a shred of humanity could fail to sympathise with Leanne Lucas. On 29th July 2024, she was hosting a Taylor Swift-themed children’s dance and bracelet-making workshop in Southport when Axel Rudakubana walked in and started attacking the children, killing three of them. In trying to protect the children Ms Lucas herself was stabbed five times.
When people suffer terrible things, they often throw themselves into searching for a means to help others avoid the same fate. Ms Lucas thinks she has found her cause. The Daily Mail reports:
Southport survivor calls for ban on pointed kitchen knives
…continue Survivors can be wrong
‘Rayner calls in Army to tackle Birmingham bin crisis’, the Telegraph reports:
Angela Rayner has called in the Army to tackle the Birmingham bin crisis.
The Local Government Secretary has used formal powers known as Military Aid to the Civil Authorities (Maca) to summon Army experts after a strike by bin workers, which has lasted over a month, left more than 17,000 tons of waste rotting in the streets.
It is understood a small number of military personnel with operational planning expertise are offering logistical support to tackle the crisis. Sources said there were contingency plans in place to scale
…continue As is traditional with a Labour government
As European countries, finally, crank up defence spending, International Traffic in Arms Regulations (or “ITAR”) are likely to come up in conversations.
Reflecting on topics such as this got me thinking that so much of the Western supply chain in military kit is controlled by the US. On the positive side, you get economies of scale and all that comes with these kind of forces. For years, Americans have been keen on selling all this funky kit to the likes of Germany, Britain, etc.
The problem is that to follow an independent foreign and military policy in this new era
…continue Fragility, supply chains and where defence is heading
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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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