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]
The instructions? “Focus on ideas, not grammar.” Reward “the use of culture, language and identity.” Embrace “linguistic diversity.” Decolonise the curriculum. “Validate diverse knowledge systems and lived experiences.” Reduce essay word counts to ease “stress.” Ditch proper exams. Let students pick formats that suit their precious “identity.”
This isn’t assessment reform. It’s compulsory brainwashing with a marking sheet. The university’s own Quality Assurance Handbook makes the ideological capture explicit: everything must align with King’s Strategic Vision 2029, embedding EDI, sustainability and “inclusivity” as non-negotiable from day one. One anonymous KCL academic told the Mail students will soon be able to challenge grades on the grounds their “culture and identity” wasn’t sufficiently validated. Fantastic. Nothing screams “world-class education” like turning every essay into a victimhood Olympics where clarity is penalised and grievance is gold.
Today please remember the victims of the Katyn Massacre. In 1940, thousands of Polish officers and intellectuals were executed by the Soviet paramilitaries.
J.D. Vance, who is the Vice President of the USA, goes to Hungary, an EU member state, and delivers a campaign speech for Victor Orban, the president of Hungary, in which Vance accuses the EU of… interference in Hungary’s elections.
Am I the only one who finds that absolutely hilarious?
I know I keep droning on about drones, but this really is a paradigm shift happening in real-time.
TL’DR… 100km from the FEBA is now a persistent danger zone due to the omnipresent threat of drones. Some were sceptical in an post earlier when drones were credited with 70% of battlefield casualties. Well, the number claimed now, based on video confirmation, is 90%.
The suffering of Gaza, the death and destruction, is undeniable. You can make a legitimate criticism of Israel’s tactics in the conduct of the war. Many Jews around the world make exactly those critiques.
But you cannot engage in such criticism legitimately if you do not also condemn the terrorism of October 7. You cannot pretend that Israel does not face a substantial terrorist threat from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Iranian regime, and other groups that do not recognize Israel’s right to exist.
You cannot complain about the restrictions on goods and material going in and out of Gaza unless you also reference the reasons for the restrictions: the fear in Israel that such materials will be used for the purpose of building a terrorist infrastructure, which is precisely what nearly 300 miles of tunnels underneath Gaza represent.
– Tony Blair, who is not someone often quoted favourably in this particular parish (£)
It is easy to underestimate how radical a change in strategy this is.
It simply would not have been possible in previous wars. Airpower capable of striking significantly behind the front lines did not exist until World War 2. Since then, command and control structures have been too widely dispersed and hardened to make broad attacks on them even theoretically possible until now.
Yes, countries sometimes try to kill each other’s top leaders. But assassinations are less common than civilians realize. Leaders generally do not target each other directly in wars — maybe hoping for a similar courtesy from the other side, or maybe because killing the other side’s leaders can make negotiating peace more difficult.
In any case, what Israel and the United States are trying is not a singular assassination but continuous attacks on a national command structure while at the same time sparing civilians to the extent possible. (Yes, the United States appears to have killed almost 200 girls in a Tomahawk attack. But the strike was clearly a mistake, not a strategic choice. It has not been repeated, and the United States is not trying to defend it.)
The American-Israeli goal is very clear: to convince the people at the top of the Iranian regime that they, and their replacements, and their replacements’ replacements, will die, and die very soon, unless they capitulate.
Can this strategy work?
I don’t know. Since it’s never been tried before, I’m not sure anyone does.
I have hesitated to post much about Ukraine lately as reliable information is hard to come by. However, the Telegram channels I have long watched on both sides, and personal contacts I have, are awash with similar reports from their own sources.
The truth of course is that ‘Net Zero’ is an article of faith. A state religion masquerading as a moral crusade despite the evidence it is expensive, ineffective, and generally regressive.
Low carbon subsidies transfer wealth from the general population to landowners and corporations. It’s state socialism delivering a caricature of pre-Corn Laws Toryism.
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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