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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Instapundit linked yesterday to a fascinating little Slashdot titbit about the price of digital books. Apparently, a crime writer called John Locke has lowered the price of his latest book from around what a book book costs to make and distribute, to a price much nearer to what an eBook costs to write and distribute, that is to say, he has dropped his price by about ninety percent. And he has been doing far better with this new arrangement than he did with the old one.
‘These days the buying public looks at a $9.95 eBook and pauses. It’s not an automatic sale,’ says Locke. ‘And the reason it’s not is because the buyer knows when an eBook is priced ten times higher than it has to be. And so the buyer pauses.
I certainly pause. For as long as eBooks cost the same as books, then I will prefer books, because I am used to books and eBooks are like … well, I don’t know what they’re like exactly, and at ten quid a go or whatever, I can’t be bothered to find out. But when eBooks start costing a tenth of what books cost, that is to say, less even than remaindered or second-hand books, then I’ll probably do a rethink.
Since writing the above, I have discovered that quite a few commenters on the Slashdot piece are of the exact same mind as me about eBooks.
It all reminds me earily of the early price of DVDs, which I recall as one of the oddest episodes in recent techno-biz history. For a fleeting little moment, DVDs were priced according to a “logic” that said that, since DVDs enable you to watch a movie lots of times over, that means that the proper price for a DVD is several times the price of a cinema ticket. Seriously, they thought they could get away with charging about forty quid for the things. Which, by the way, explains the ridiculously elaborate cases that individual DVDs still typically get sold in. When DVDs started out, they thought they were selling something almost unimaginable in its luxuriousness. They thought they were selling an even better version of those enormous metallic discs that they used to sell at about a hundred quid a pop to millionaires of the sort who really did have real home cinemas. Which they sort of were. But that didn’t mean that the rest of us were willing to pay millionaire money to get our hands on a decent DVD collection. We could already guess what DVDs cost to make (not a lot) and until we saw that fact reflected in the prices we were being asked to pay, we sat on our hands.
And that is what has surely been going on during the last year or two with eBooks. They haven’t charged for eBooks like they were hardbacks, but they have looked at what they consider to be the added convenience when deciding about price, rather than looking at the cost to them of making and distributing the product and the consequent opportunity to reach a whole new raft of customers with a dramatically reduced price. A few pioneers willing to pay off the development costs of the new gizmos have paid for these early eBooks. But now, eBooks will surely plummet in price, just as DVDs did.
Occasionally people tell me that I should write a book. I’m pretty sure that will never happen, but the eBook phenomenon, which I sense is about to get truly phenomenal (both in how books are read and in how they are created), may change my mind about that.
Did Steve Holliday, Chief Executive of the National Grid, let the cat out of the bag or deliberately set it amongst the pigeons when he said, on Radio 4 last week, that our National Grid is going to have start being “smarter” about who gets electricity and who doesn’t? Delingpole reckons he’s an imbecile, and maybe he is. I didn’t hear the actual Radio 4 interview, so do not now know if he was blurting out an embarrassed admission or proud proclamation of inanity, or on the other hand offering a more careful and considered warning, thus to alert politicians to the consequences of their excessive policy greenness of recent years. Whatever the old school newspapers (that story, by the way, says that Delingpole is right) make of this story, it is already going walkabout in the new media.
Slowly, the counter-attack against global greenery is taking shape. First it was Climategate, which is now, finally, finding its way inside the heads of the kind of people who rule the world. The scientific excuses for greenery are collapsing, not just in the heads of skeptics, but in the heads of the kind of idiot politicians who originally accepted these excuses without bothering to scrutinise them. Now the consequences of greenery are becoming clearer. Blackouts. Nothing says “failed politicians” like power cuts.
For Britain, a big moment will arrive when it is finally, truly accepted, by enough British people to make this acceptance stick, that these blackouts are being imposed upon us by, and by means of, the European Union, and that our Prime Minister is not our Prime Minister, any more than the District Commissioner of your province in India was your District Commissioner. Today, the news is, yet again, that David Cameron is going native. I’ll believe this when it starts having consequences, in the form of Britain doing things that the EU forbids, and when they threaten to chuck us out, and when Cameron says: go on then, I dare you. I wouldn’t put this past him. He seems to be the kind of leader who follows his followers.
But, more generally, I am not angry about this tendency for the world more and more to be ruled as a single entity by the kind of people who now rule it. Telephones and atom bombs have seen to that. The former technology has long meant that they can talk to each other rationally, and the latter one has for more than half a century meant that they must. These people are now, more and more, all on the same side. I just wish they were ruling the world rather better than they actually actually are now ruling it.
In the matter of greenery, the world’s rulers have perpetrated and continue to perpetrate a huge folly, and personally I am very grateful to the probably imbecilic Steve Holliday for having made this fact that little bit clearer.
What I’ve described is essentially a top-down process, yes, that has gone bottom-up, as I’ve described so far, across official levels at Departments very widely. Now we have to make sure that nothing has fallen between the cracks in the stakeholder engagement process, but I think this issue of top-level Government buy-in to it is very important. I see it as a feature of the way that the new Government goes about its business. The approach of Cabinet Committees, with Ministers taking them very seriously, officials being energised by the fact that Committees will come back, rather than the Committee process being in any sense a formality, is something that in a lot of processes, not just relevant to the NRP, is galvanising much better across Government co-ordination in a very productive way. I think this applies to the NRP, as to lots of other things.
– Lord Sassoon, Commercial Secretary to the Treasury, makes everything clear. Helen Szamuely found it here.
Fugitive Inklings is what the blog Fugitive Ink has turned into, and just over a week ago, it featured a delightful posting about a visit, by Madam Fugitive Inklings and her young son, to the Globe Theatre. This is one of London’s most successfully idiosyncratic recent architectural additions, being a recreation, as authentically as they could make it, of the original Globe Theatre, pretty much where it originally was, where many of Shakespeare’s plays were first performed.
Mother and son attended, not a play, but a stage fighting demonstration, done with the exact sort of weapons that would first have been used in these plays. Better yet, they got to hear about it from the man who contrived these weapons. This is one of those posting where you start out trying to pick a particularly good bit, but end up wanting to copy the whole thing. So, instead of copying and pasting any of it, I say: go there and read the whole thing.
Not long ago, I read a book called 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, which starts off with the tale of how they moved the original manifestation of the Globe Theatre from its previous home in north London, across the river to the South Bank, i.e. to where the Globe is now. And I think it was also in this book where I read that a great many of the people in the first audiences for Shakespeare’s plays were soldiers, camped outside the city limits of what London then consisted of, waiting to go off to fight on the continent. Such audiences would have paid particular attention to fights, and to the weapons used in them. And of course they would have understood perfectly all the verbal references to weaponry that occur in the plays, many of which now baffle most of us.
I believe I am the senior Samizdatista, in years if not in eloquence or influence. And one of the privileges of advancing years is the right to inflict upon strangers the details of one’s various medical infirmities and experiences. I can’t, yet, quite manage the truly, Platonically essential, shameless way of doing this, which is: in a very loud voice on the top deck of a double-decker bus. But, a blog is a satisfactory next best, so here goes. Stop whatever else you may be doing or trying to do, stop talking amongst yourselves, and listen to me.
A few months ago, a crown that had been attached to one of my disintegrating British teeth started to loosen, and about one month ago, this crown fell off. My non-British dentist advised that what remained of the real tooth was now useless and that it all should go. This was not a wisdom tooth; those are long gone. It was the next one in, top left. But I wouldn’t miss it, said my dentist. If I did, an “implant” could be contrived.
So, a week ago now, the tooth was duly removed. The NHS had been asked to do something about all this, as soon as the crown had become loose. But not a peep was heard from the NHS in three months (apparently a whole clutch of letters due to go out had been delayed for some obscure reason – waiting lists?), so when the crown finally did fall off, I decided to go private. Had I been content to lie about how much it was hurting (in reality it only started hurting after the tooth had been removed), the emergency bit of the NHS might have obliged. But, forced to choose, I preferred buying to lying, and so, for £150, the date was fixed and the deed was done.
Local anaesthetics do away with almost all pain, but I can’t get used to the notion that all that grinding and sawing is not hurting, and I love it when it ends. But taking out a tooth involves flesh, not just teeth. I had supposed that once the tooth had gone, any discomfort involved would end, but gouging out a tooth does damage. It does less damage if all of the tooth comes out in one go, but mine did not. After most of the tooth had been removed, a long, thin root remained, and further damage was done to my gum while that was dug out. So, not surprisingly when I actually thought about it, it was only when the local anaesthetic started to wear off that the serious discomfort began. The pain has by no means been unbearable, but it started out quite bad, and has still not truly abated. For a couple of days all but the smallest mouthful, the shallowest spoonful, involved a painfully slow wrenching open of the jaw. I am still chewing only with the other side of my mouth, not least because the hole takes time to fill itself in. Further dentistry may be required to this end.
Okay, so much for the shouting on a bus bit. Now it gets a little more officially Samizdata-esque. → Continue reading: Defensive British dentistry
England are certainly contributing mightily to the enjoyability of the Cricket World Cup. Their first game, against the Netherlands, stayed interesting almost to the end, on account of the slogging inflicted on England by Ryan ten Doeschate. As a result of that, England had to make nearly three hundred. They did this, but had to bat very well. You kept thinking they might collapse and lose. That was the first really fun game of the tournament, all the previous games having been tediously one-sided demolitions of lesser teams by big teams.
Next up, England played India. India belted 338, and that looked beyond England, but at one stage England looked to be cruising it, until they lost two big wickets in two balls. Then they lost more wickets and looked well beaten. But then, the England tail wagged, and what do you suppose happened then? Only a tie!
And now, now, a true upset is in the offing, because Ireland, chasing England’s satisfactory but not stellar total of 327, and having at one stage been 111-5 (for Americans – that’s bad) are now, get this, 272-5 with all of nine overs left. For Americans – that’s good, really good. Ireland are now odds on to win this!
And the blogger’s curse strikes! Ireland have lost a wicket. A run out!
But this is not over yet, because the batsman who got out, Cusack, has most definitely been the junior partner in the huge stand of 162 that has just ended. At the other end, still batting, is a certain Kevin O’Brien and he is 101 not out, having smashed the record for the fastest (measured in deliveries faced) century in the history of the Cricket World Cup. O’Brien has hit six sixes, including the biggest one of the tournament so far.
WOW says my computer screen. Actually this was an advert for Weightwatchers, but for once an annoyingly interruptive advert hit the nail on the head.
The run rate has now fallen, and it is all getting even more tense. A few more big shots from O’Brien and Ireland will win this, but a close finish plays havoc with the mental equilibrium of even the best players. But, they’ve had a couple of streaky, snicky boundaries and need 34 from 29 balls, with four wickets left.
The funny thing is, even if England lose, they will probably make their way through to the quarter finals. Not a huge amount is at stake. But, if Ireland win, it will be, as they say, what the World Cup is all about!
32 from 26. Ireland now 300-6. Somebody called Mooney is now joining in, with a couple of great boundaries. 23 from 21. 20 from 18. 18 from 16. O’Brien is taking a breather, before what I am sure he hopes will be a triumphant assault, probably in the next over rather than the last one. Ireland won’t want to leave this to the very end. 16 from 13. Bosh! Mooney again! That really hurts England. 12 from 12, still with four wickets left. Even a hectic wicket strewn shambles by Ireland will still probably win this!
Now O’Brien is run out! He scored 113 from 63 deliveries. It’s anybody’s now. Now they’re showing the replay of the O’Brien run out. He had simply run out of puff, poor fellow. No wonder.
And somebody called Johnston hits his first ball, a full toss, to the boundary. Ireland need 7 from 10, and are right back to being hot favourites. 2 more to Johnston! 5 wanted from 8. Ireland 323-7. 4 from 7. One boundary does it. 3 to win from the last over. Mooney, 29 not out, on strike.
Ireland win. Biggest successful run chase at the World Cup, ever.
I was going to do serious things this afternoon. Oh well.
Here is a good piece by Rob Fisher about the latest episode of Channel 4 TV’s 10 O’clock Live. Particularly good bit:
Another highlight was the interview with Stephen Dubner, a co-author of SuperFreakonomics. The interviewers Jimmy Carr and Lauren Laverne failed to say anything remotely intelligent, but it thankfully didn’t matter too much because they did at least let Dubner speak at length. He made some good (and downright subversive) points about the incentives of politicians. He suggested that they sign up for long term projects such as “improve education” and they get paid at the end of 5 or 10 years proportional to the results. The idea is to align success in politics with success at achieving goals, and he compared this to how businesses succeed and fail. Getting this kind of thinking into the mainstream – not necessarily agreeing with the specifics but just getting people to think about economics and game theory and how politics really works – is great stuff. Well done Dubner and Channel 4.
I agree with Rob. My preferred attitude to spreading ideas has always been to unbundle them, to try to spread them, at any rate in hostile circumstances, one at a time or at least only a very few at a time. Bundling among friends is also, if you think about it, often saying just the one thing or just the few things, that the bundling of this with that and maybe also with that makes sense – this, that and that having already been long agreed about separately.
I haven’t watched 10 O’clock Live beyond episode one, but applaud Rob for doing so. We need our people everywhere, and watching (between us) everything.
Which they probably won’t now take, but later they may get the point.
I recall how, some time in the early 1980s, I had a run-in with a British Post Office worker.
I had this package which I wanted the Post Office to, you know, post to someone. So I wrapped it up and took it to the Post Office.
But it turned out that it was just that little bit too big for the hole that this Post Office worker wanted to put it into.
“Look”, he said, as if instructing a small and inattentive boy. “It’s too big to go in,” said he. “Can’t you see that?” He had a point, sort of. It really wasn’t hard to see, now. Big package. Slightly smaller hole. As we would say now: simples. And yes indeed, I could see that now. But when I was wrapping up the package at the bookshop I was then working in, I had no idea about the hole I would later have to stuff the package into. I felt like hitting the Post Office worker with the package, or at the very least explaining all this, in an angry tone.
But, wisely, I did not do this. Instead, all forced charm and bogus ingratiation, I acknowledged the abjectness of my obviously foolish miscalculation, and apologised deeply. What had I been thinking? Then, I tried to persuade him to think of some other procedure to enable the Post Office to post my package, and eventually, after some further instruction of me concerning my sloppy and foolish ways, he did agree to accept the package, despite its obvious failure to fit into his hole. He took the package and disappeared in a self-important manner to some room in the back of the Post Office. I went back to my bookshop, muttering curses to myself and speculating about the hole I would really have liked to shove my package into.
Some little while later, I observed, on the television, some Post Office workers who were engaged in a fight of some kind against our then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Mrs Thatcher wanted to do something or other to the Post Office that the Post Office workers were angry about. It would cause chaos, they said, and make the Post Office worse, they said, and more expensive, as it quite possibly would, and quite possibly did. But because these Post Office workers were dealing, not with defenceless little me, but with Margaret Thatcher on the rampage, they were the ones now on the defensive. She wasn’t trying to persuade them of anything. She was simply telling them. They were trying to persuade her to do things differently.
To this end, the Post Office workers were appealing for public support.
They thought they would get it, effortlessly. From the way they were talking on the television, you would think that The Public were about to rise up in a great tidal wave and overwhelm the Prime Minister with their hatred of her (then as now quite widespread) and their love for the workers of the Post Office and their admiration for their extreme wisdom and obligingness.
But The Public all did as I did. We just sat there, saying: “You bastards may well be right that Maggie T’s plan will harm the Post Office, but her plan does at least have one huge plus. You hate it! It will make you suffer! You think we will help you stop it. Dream on, you tyrannical, supercilious bastards.” The great public silence that greeted the Post Office workers, instead of the great wave of support that they had been counting on, must have shocked them deeply. Important silences, huge non-events, are not usually front page news. But I noticed, and others surely did too. I wondered what Mr Your-Package-Is-Too-Big My-Hole-Is-Too-Small was thinking and feeling about it all. I hoped he was suffering.
Those Post Office workers had totally misunderstood that package-in-the-hole moment that I had had with one of them, and millions upon millions of other moments like it, stretching back through the decades. They, the Postal Workers, imagined that at the end of such moments, The Public walked away full of love and gratitude for the Postal Workers. But actually, we walked away full of pent-up rage. We had had to force ourselves to fake love and gratitude, and hated the Postal Workers all the more because of this. They had believed our performances. They really thought that we really were full of love and gratitude for them. Big mistake. Huge mistake.
Come the day when the tables were turned by a politician who was aggregating all our rage into a force majeure moment which left them trying to persuade her to do what they wanted, they were helpless.
All of which was brought on by this Instapundit posting about how angry the American Public now feels about American public sector workers of various kinds.
I now feel much better. Also, I wonder if blogs will make a difference to this kind of thing. Will blogs, and especially blog comments, tell America’s public sector trade unionists to back off gracefully, the way no blogger or blog-commenter could tell our unions circa 1984? They surely will. They surely are. But will they listen? Will they get it? It will be interesting to see.
It will not do to chastise Obama’s budget proposal as a simple “refusal to lead,” a “punt,” or a “cynical political maneuver.” Obama isn’t failing to lead. He is very cleverly leading us toward an irreversible expansion of the welfare state. If Obama is reelected and in control when the entitlement crisis finally does hit, he will manage the country toward Euro-style taxes and Euro-style socialism. After all, in the midst of its current fiscal crisis, Obama is pushing Europe to expand spending, not contract it.
I like this post by Lexington Green (h/t Glenn Reynolds), although his vision of permanent Republican meltdown is overdrawn. Lexington rightly rejects the “failure to lead” framing, highlighting Obama’s strategic moves and long-term intentions instead. The notion that Obama plans to use Republican proposals for cuts to kick off a movement of “angry and mobilized” beneficiaries is exactly right. Obama’s 2010 attacks on the Chamber of Commerce and his infamous “punish your enemies” exhortation were efforts to do the same thing. I lay out the rationale behind this intentionally polarizing strategy in the final chapter of Radical-in-Chief. It’s a program deeply rooted in Obama’s past. And in the absence of an honest avowal of his plans and motives in the present, only the past reveals the truth about this president’s vision of the future.
Perhaps I’m wrong and “the president’s abdication of leadership” sound bite will be enough to defeat “the GOP’s heartless cuts.” Even so, as an alternative, I suggest: “Obama’s radical plans are leading us off a cliff.”
– Stanley Kurtz
Remarkable developments are in train at London’s Royal Court Theatre, in the form of a play that is about climate science, but is not Watermelon propaganda. In a guest posting at Bishop Hill, Mr and Mrs Josh (Mr Josh also does the cartoons at Bishop Hill) provide a fascinating and enticing review of The Heretic, a new play by Richard Bean:
Book your tickets now, this play is a must-see comedy.
It has everything – more accurate climate science than a BBC documentary (ok, that’s not exactly hard), brilliantly funny and wonderfully staged.
The drama centres on university climate scientist, Dr Diane Cassell, played superbly by Juliet Stevenson, whose research on sea levels in the Maldives shows no rising trend in sea levels.
This puts her at odds with Professor Kevin Maloney, Head of Dept Earth Sciences, played by James Fleet (sinisterly morphed from Hugo, in the Vicar of Dibley) whose main aim is to attract more funding to the department by toeing the consensus line on Climate Change.
When she publishes her research and expresses her skeptical views, notably on Newsnight to Jeremy Paxman, she becomes the focus of some very direct persecution.
Add in Phoebe, her daughter, and Ben, her carbon-obsessed first-year student, plus an ex-marine security guard and the stage is set. Pure comedy ensues as Ben follows the logic of his beliefs, refusing to keep warm, travel in any petroleum-based transport, and considering suicide since his vegetarian diet causes excessive methane production. Phoebe is ahead of him; severely anorexic she is at real risk of not making it. Both characters are played with worrying fragility that conveys lives overshadowed by fear, battling to understand the issues or find a set of rules to live by. Their plight is all too similar to that of Diane, struggling to work out if the death threats from environmentalists should be taken seriously.
In a feat of Montfordian proportions nearly all the major recent climate change stories are woven into the play: the lack of sea level rise, the politicisation of science by the IPCC, Glaciergate, the logarithmic effect of CO2 (in a way you will never forget), the misanthropy of some environmentalist groups, the ‘one-tree’ hockey stick, and, of course, Climategate. But the issues are put on the table, without arm twisting, encouraging the audience to go out and do their own research.
Maybe I am reading far too much into this, but this sounds like it could be something of a cultural turning point in Britain. For decades now, there has been a self-reinforcing feedback loop shutting out anything but left wing friendly dramas from the live theatre in Britain, or so it has seemed and felt to one of those who has felt shut out. No anti-lefty dramas – e.g. praising Thatcher or heroic entrepreneurs or working class vigilantes, or denouncing bossy social workers or manipulative communists or ridiculous civil servants or psychotic and tyrannical Islamists, or pointing at the state itself as the prime mover in the banking crisis – have made sense to the theatres, because the audience for such things hasn’t been there, and because writers have been disinclined even to bother writing such things. What’s the point? And because there is no non-lefty drama, the audience for such things never comes. It stays at home surfing the net or watching its preferred telly shows and movies. If it is like me, it blogs.
Crucial to the willingness of another audience to show up to see this play is that it can be urged to do so on the internet, despite the major official organs of British theatre publicity, notable the BBC and the Guardian, apparently trying, just as they have tried with Climategate itself, to be very sniffy and dismissive. If a new audience does show up in strength at the Royal Court to see The Heretic, then that could result in Britain’s theatres saying: hey, I wonder if there are other non-lefty-friendly “issues” out there that we haven’t done before, because the BBC and the Guardian haven’t allowed us to?
Never forget that theatre folk love a big row, provided only that the row isn’t too big, as it would be if they took at serious whack at Islam. They love to push the boundaries, not too far, but just that little bit beyond what is entirely safe. They love to make mischief, to get everyone shouting at each other. They love to take the piss out of whoever happens at any particular moment to be the pompous and hypocritical elite, because, potentially, maybe, that will sell tickets, contrive bums on seats. Okay, most British thesps are lefties themselves, but many of those lefties are theatricals first, lefties second, and in quite a few other cases, on the quiet, so I surmise, not actually proper lefties at all, really, even though they dress like lefties and talk like lefties.
A earlier key moment in British theatrical history happened in the late nineteen fifties. British live theatre was then the Conservative Party at play, watching third-rate Noel Coward imitations consisting of brittle, well-dressed upper middle class chat in implausibly opulent living rooms with big floor-to-ceiling French windows at the back, centre stage. That is a caricature but not that much of one. But suddenly, or so it felt, all that was smashed to pieces by John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, and all that followed from it. Look Back in Anger was also, by the way, first presented at the Royal Court. Perhaps my view of all that is a bit myopic, because the nearest theatre to my home when I was a kid was the Windsor Rep, which, I seem to recall, showed third-rate Noel Coward imitations just about all the time. But I suspect I have it about right, even if those closer to theatrical happenings then had felt in their water that the Angry Young Man upheaval had been coming for some time and thus remember it as a somewhat more gradual thing. I’m not saying that The Heretic is in the same class, as a play or as a culturally explosive event, as Look Back in Anger. I haven’t seen The Heretic yet. But this new play may perhaps, with hindsight, come be seen as one of the bigger paving stones that paved the way for something that is more like Look Back in Anger.
Goodness knows, Britain certainly contains plenty of anger just now.
Conveniently for me, the Royal Court Theatre is in Sloane Square, which is only a longish walk or a short bus or tube ride from where I live. I’m giving a talk on Monday. As soon as that’s out of the way, I will pop around to the Royal Court and fix to see The Heretic for myself.
From the latest Radio Times, concerning a Radio 4 programme entitled In Denial: Climate on the Couch, to be aired at 9pm this evening. I will listen, and I will set my radio recorder.
Radio Times blurb:
Jolyon Jenkins investigates the psychology of climate change efforts, asking why some people seem unconcerned even though scientists are forecasting terrible changes to the planet. He questions whether environmentalists and the Government have been putting out messages that are counterproductive, and whether trying to scare people into action might actually be causing them to consume more.
My suspicion is that what I and all others who listen to this programme will hear will be an explanation of the failure of the Greenists to convince that omits the crucial matter of the mere truth, and what is now sincerely believed to be the truth by more and more of the mere people. The phrase “In Denial” does strongly suggest this. And “On the Couch” suggests that they think that some people, presumably all who deny, are mad.
You know the kind of thing: People don’t think there’s anything they can do! – No wonder they’re being crazy! – We have not communicated successfully! – We have not got our message across properly!
It probably was rather a bad idea to make it look like they want to blow up children who disagree with them. But what if, despite such communicational ineptness, they have got their message across, but people just think it’s a pack of lies? If that is what people now think, then no amount of improved communicational expertise that doesn’t deal with the mere truth of things will make much difference.
But, my suspicions may prove to be unjustified. As of now, I live in hope that the truth, both what it is and what it is now believed to be, will at least get a semi-respectful mention, in among all the psychologising.
LATER:
This programme isn’t about climate science so it’s going to assume that the scientific consensus is true.
And a moment later, someone described (it may have been Jolyon Jenkins) this consensus as “undeniable”. Which was an odd word to use, given the title.
Well, at least it has just been admitted that people sometimes say that it’s all being exaggerated, even if it is assumed that this is mistaken and evasive. That it might be an honest opinion is not up for discussion, because that would mean discussing climate science.
So, the early and pessimistic commenters here are right. It looks like being a long discussion of what a bunch of true-believers can do to save the world, given that a huge tranche of people has decided that the world doesn’t need saving, but will have to be convinced in the true-believer stuff is to even make sense let alone accomplish anything.
The elephant in their room is that they have lost this argument, in the sense that they need unanimity in this, but are drifting further and further away from unanimity. They are ignoring this elephant. They are behaving like that economist, stuck on a desert island with various other sorts of experts, who is wondering how to contrive a tin-opener. “Let’s assume we have a tin-opener.” This won’t work.
LATER: Thinking about this some more, I should perhaps stress that the people who sincerely disagree that CAGW is happening were not called mad, as I feared they might be. They were simply ignored. All were assumed to really believe in CAGW, but to be using some kind of psychological doublethink to evade what they knew they ought to be doing really. Like I say: let’s assume we’ve won.
A charity that relies in the main part on taxes is no more a charity than a prostitute is your girlfriend.
– Guido Fawkes ruminates on how David Cameron’s idea of the Big Society differs from Big Government. Strongly recommended to all those who, like me, have to force themselves to listen to anything said by David Cameron, but who like to read Guido.
Doing this got me wondering how Fake Charities has been doing lately. Answer: it’s buzzing along very well, and is also strongly recommended.
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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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