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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An article in Wired reports a victory against the ‘forces of darkness’ with a US court refusing to allow the French state to impose Internet restrictions across the world. Does this mean I think wacko groups like the KKK or Nazi historical fantasists are ok? No I don’t. However I do not want my judgement and prejudices to have force of law, unlike the lawyer for the forces of statist authoritarianism, Stephane Lilti.
“If this ruling, which we will appeal against in the United States, is upheld, it will give total impunity to all those who seek technological asylum in the United States,” Stephane Lilti told Reuters. “This would make America a haven for all types of people on the extreme right and racists … for us French it will be extremely difficult to ensure our justice system’s decisions are respected because we will be dealing with someone who can take refuge in a U.S. computer.”
Excellent. Every time we can make a repressive law in France or anywhere else unworkable, the light of liberty shines a little brighter across the entire world. Why should anyone respect the French justice system’s decisions to repress free speech? Notice Lilti does not seem to worry about ‘the extreme left’. I guess this means a post to the Internet in support of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot is just fine by him.
What force advocating statist lawyers like Lilti do not choose to realise is that the best way to destroy irrational buffons like the KKK is not by forcing them underground but by actually shining the light of day on them. Let them out into the open where everyone can see what preposterous little people they are by reading their own words… sort of like the way Stephane Lilti is exposed by his words as a noxious enemy of liberty who rails in fury against the rest of the world’s refusal to be a party to the repression of French internet users.
As Sinead O’Connor put it in a song:
Though their own words.
they will be exposed,
they’ve got a severe case
of the ‘Emperor’s new clothes’
So I would like to raise my glass to all you technological asylum seekers, yearning to speak free…the brave ones, the oppressed ones, the articulate ones and yes, even you stupid hateful ignorant ones.
And to those who would gag us, censor us and unplug us… fuck you
An interesting article by Saritha Prabhu, who give an nice perspective on what the war against terrorism actually means to ‘the man in the street’ in The Tennessean.
Living in an affluent western society it is easy to forget that for most of the rest of the world, when a war suddenly comes snarling across your border it is not something you only get ‘feel’ by watching the BBC or CNN.
For a libertarian angle on the Harry Potter phenomenon, check out Natalie’s blog and look for the article “Harry Potter and the Libertarian Subtext”. Most entertaining.
There is an interesting Boston Herald article about the draconian plans to, in effect, declare martial law in the USA in the event of a bioweaponized attack of smallpox.
Probably the best computer game yet made is Deus Ex, in which you, the player, take on the role of J. C. Denton, an ‘enhanced’ agent of uncertain background and shifting loyalties.
Initially you start out as a good little statist secret policeman working in the USA and supporting FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (which actually does exist in real life) as it tries to distribute vaccine to key people as a terrible disease ravages New York city in the near future… and fighting against the ‘terrorist’ bad guys who for some reason are trying to thwart FEMA. Eventually you end up working for these self same ‘terrorists’ and fighting against your previous employer when it turns out that the plague is really just an excuse for FEMA to mastermind a coup d’etat, suspend all civil rights and take over the US government.
Read the Boston Herald article and then ask yourself…is reality starting to take it’s lead from computer games? Scary thought.
Deus Ex is a superb game. Unlike most ‘first person shooters’ in which you interact with people mostly by shooting them, in Deus Ex you have to actually talk to them (and of course some you do indeed end up shooting). This is a game which actually has characters expressing political and moral views, from mystical totalitarianism to cynical statism to well armed libertarianism! Also, how many other computer games do you know of in which during a visit to Paris, you can find yourself being subjected to a believably idiotic existentialist argument? Likewise, whilst stealing some weapons from an arms dealer’s house, if you click on a book next to his bed you will find yourself reading a chapter of Common Sense by Tom Paine. Elsewhere, you may or may not encounter two utterly incidental characters who are clearly very closely based on The Story of O. This is a superb and intelligent game that does not treat the player like an ignoramus.
However let’s hope it is not also an accurate vision of the future!
An article in the Washington Post reports moves against a couple of the larger ‘Hawala’ networks. Also: “Under the new anti-terrorism legislation passed by Congress last month, hawalas will be required by year-end to register with the Treasury Department and, like banks, to report suspicious activities, such as unusually large cash transfers.”
The idiots seem to completely miss the point about why people use hawala (or Chinese ‘Fei Qian’) to move money internationally. It is so that the state cannot see what they are doing. To demand hawalas register with the state and report ‘suspicious activities’ is rather like passing a law requiring bank robbers to register and file a report prior to conducting a robbery. Do terrorists use hawala? Probably. So do millions of other people. Will they manage to shut the system down (which has been around since the 11th Century in India, China and other parts of Asia)? My guess is they will be even less successful than that other triumph of the state’s excursion into international paramilitary policing, namely the ‘Drug War’. These hawalas occur within ethnically homogenous tight knit communities. It is going to be impossible to shut down more than a few of these dispersed, multiply redundant networks as they are semi-underground as it is and extremely easy to set up again by others if any given hawala is disrupted.
What is a hawala?
A hawala (or fei qian) is a simple network set up to transfur funds internationally, usually using a member of an extended family or personal friend on both sides of the network (though a few larger hawalas are almost like banks). Vijay (or Abdul or Deng) goes to a hawala (typically a small back street office) in London (or Los Angeles or Paris or Toronto) and gives them a quantity of cash plus a small brokerage fee. He tells the hawala who he wants to collect the money in Calcutta (or Karachi or Cairo or Shanghai) and then leaves. The business is conducted with a handshake and trust. The hawala in London calls his contact in Calcutta (often a cousin or other family member) and tells him how much to disburse and to whom. This is often done on the phone but increasingly it is done by PGP encrypted e-mail. Next day, a relative of Vijay (or Abdul or Deng) goes to the hawala in Calcutta, identifies himself to the associated hawala there and collects his cash. The hawala run accounts with each other and periodically settle up the old fashioned way: a guy with a suitcase packed full of used 50 pound notes (or 100 dollar bills) gets on a plane in London, flies to Calcutta and settles the tab in cash. It is that simple!
In fact they are an excellent example of highly successful, completely unregulated, handshake based international capitalism. Hence is it hardly surprising so many people in government do not like these networks as it gives lie to all the smug claims about the supposed superiority of the West’s regulated international financial systems.
As usual, the state wants to see all and know all… of course it will still understand nothing. Wired magazine has a good article about the current state of play.
Remember boys and girls, when crypto is outlawed, only outlaws will have crypto. I have the greatest confidence we will always find new and innovative ways of keeping the state blind, deaf and dumb about things that are none of it’s damn business… namely our business.
It should be clear beyond any reasonable doubt that the judgement, discrimination and taste of the previous King of Jordan, Hussain, was remarkable… astonishing even. It should also be absolutely clear that the current King, Abdullah, was not just an inspired choice to succeed him but has in fact taken the talents of his predecessor to undreamt of heights of excellence.
Am I referring to their handling of Jordan’s relations with Israel? Was I thinking of how they have dealt with the dangerous and unpredictable Syrians? Did I mean the wide ranging internal reforms within Jordan? How they walk the tightrope of the ethnic dimension of Jordanian politics? No, none of those things.
I am of course referring to the Hashemite Kings outstanding taste in elegant, exquisite, intelligent women! Queen Noor was, and Queen Rania is, simply breathtaking. In these days of geopolitical turmoil, terrorism and economic confusion, let us pause for a moment and applaud a world leader for his taste in babes. As Mel Brooks said “It’s good to be the King!”
We do have some genuine friends in the Middle East… and is it such a bad thing that some of them are real lookers?
Actor Bruce Willis refuses to fly to Britain ‘because his children pleaded with him not to’, cricketers Robert Croft and Andrew Caddick refuse to fly to India due to ‘security concerns’. Fine, that is their prerogative. It is also the prerogative of others to judge these ‘public’ individuals by their actions. In spite of the fact these people are far more likely to die whilst crossing the road, they allow misplaced fears to determine their actions.
Terrorism works when people allow themselves to become terrorised and that seems to have occurred with the timid of heart. Apparently Willis wants his children to react to even the most indistinct nebulous ‘threat’ by cowering behind the gated walls of their mansion. I hope his next role as an ‘action hero’ is greeted with the same derisory smirks and pithy asides that greeted Ann Heche when she played the heterosexual love interest for Harrison Ford in ‘Six days, Seven Nights’.
In less dissembling times, I think Willis, Croft and Caddick would have been called ‘cowards’.
So when Ann Heche’s former partner Ellen Degeneris stands up at the Emmy’s last night with a red, white and blue ribbon and says “What would bug the Taliban more than seeing a gay woman in a suit surrounded by Jews?”, it becomes clear that not only is she a very good comedienne, not everyone in Hollywood is cringing in terror and blaming it on ‘their children’.
So here’s to you, Ellen. As we always suspected, you are indeed the one wearing the trousers.
The state is a core of malevolence surrounded by a thick cloying crust of incompetence
-Perry de Havilland
Whilst I am far too modest to tell anyone how many notches I have on my bed’s headboard, someone can reasonably add two more notches now that Dale and Natalie have lost their virginity by blogging (presumably the ‘someone’ in question is the seemingly omnipresent ‘Joe Blogs’… who obviously ‘swings both ways’ it would seem, unless Joe is short for Josephine).
Good to have you (oops) both aboard.
Regarding the Samizdata displacing the Libertarian Alliance Forum, I don’t think so. A blog is not really as interactive as a forum and thus suggests we post in a less ‘immediate’ way. I think blogging is more akin to sending a letter to the editor of some dead tree publication. When we blog, we are letting the world know what we think either by re-posting something we have found of interest or, primarily, by writing our own editorial on the events that are of interest to us as critically rational individuals. I regard a forum such as the LA-F as more akin to public conversation.
Tony Blair addresses the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) on the 5th of Novermber and says his policies of ‘restraint’ and ‘prudence’ are going to continue. Yet we are in the middle of an explosion of non-military public profligacy. Government spending is increasing at a much faster rate than the economy is growing and surely every member of the CBI knows that.
Now I realise Blair is a statist politician and thus dissembles by profession, yet the ‘great and good’ of British capitalism just sit there and listen politely. Was it something about the acoustics that nobody except the TV microphones actually heard what he said? Why were there not hoots of derision and gasps of disbelief from the bovine CBI members, given that it is their companies that in large measure will actually have to stump up the money for this spending binge?
And now I hear that our political ‘masters’ are maybe/maybe not planning to ‘raise taxes’ but will most likely be increasing National Insurance ‘contributions’ (i.e. a tax on employment). So let me get this right… the LABOUR Party wants to make it more expensive to employ people’s labour just as the economy is starting to go into recession.
On that day of all days, Guy Fawkes Night, the 5th of November, the people listening to him should have been making a bonfire of their conference programmes and telling Tony Blair the best thing he can do for the economy is to go fight his war in Afghanistan and leave the business of creating wealth to the people who actually create it.
Please, someone. Wake me up!
Articles like this are always useful when trying to make up one’s mind in the ever interesting ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate
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UCLA Team Maps How Genes Affect Brain Structure, Intelligence
Source: Science Daily
Published: 11/5/2001 Author: University Of California – Los Angeles
UCLA brain mapping researchers have created the first
images to show how an individuals genes influence their
brain structure and intelligence.
The findings, published in the Nov. 5 issue of the journal
Nature Neuroscience, offer exciting new insight about how parents
pass on personality traits and cognitive abilities,
and how brain diseases run in families.
The team found that the amount of gray matter in the
frontal parts of the brain is determined by the genetic
make-up of an individuals parents, and strongly correlates
with that individuals cognitive ability, as measured by
intelligence test scores.
More importantly, these are the first images to uncover how
normal genetic differences influence brain structure and
intelligence.
Brain regions controlling language and reading skills were
virtually identical in identical twins, who share exactly
the same genes, while siblings showed only 60 percent of
the normal brain differences.
This tight structural similarity in the brains of family
members helps explain why brain diseases, including
schizophrenia and some types of dementia, run in families.
We were stunned to see that the amount of gray matter in
frontal brain regions was strongly inherited, and also
predicted an individuals IQ score, said Paul Thompson,
the studys chief investigator and an assistant professor
of neurology at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging.
The brains language areas were also extremely similar in
family members. Brain regions that were found to be most
similar in family members may be especially vulnerable to
diseases that run in families, including some forms of
psychosis and dementia.
The scientists employed magnetic resonance imaging
technology to scan a group of 20 identical twins, whose
genes are identical, and 20 same-sex fraternal twins, who
share half their genes.
Using a high-speed supercomputer, they created color-coded
images showing which parts of the brain are determined by
our genetic make-up, and which are more adaptable to
environmental factors, such as learning and stress.
To create the maps of genetic influences on the brain, the
UCLA scientists teamed up with the National Public Health
Institute of Finland, and the Finnish Universities of
Helsinki and Oulu.
In a national initiative, the Finnish team tracked all the
same-sex twins born in Finland between 1940 and 1957
9,500 pairs of twins many of whom received brain scans
and cognitive tests.
Their genetic similarity was confirmed by analyzing 78
different genetic markers. These individual pieces of DNA
match exactly in identical twins, and half of them match in
siblings.
Recent research has shown that many cognitive skills are
surprisingly heritable, with strong genetic influences on
verbal and spatial abilities, reaction times, and even some
personality qualities, including emotional reactions to
stress.
These genetic relationships persist even after statistical
adjustments are made for shared family environments, which
tend to make members of the same family more similar. Until
this study, little was known about how much individual
genotype accounts for the wide variations among individual
brains, as well as individuals cognitive ability.
The UCLA researchers are also applying this new genetic
brain mapping approach to relatives of schizophrenic
patients, and individuals at genetic risk for Alzheimers
disease, to screen them for early brain changes, and help
understand familial risk for inherited brain disorders
where specific risk genes are unknown.
Other UCLA researchers involved in the project are Tyrone
Cannon, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral and
human genetics, and Arthur Toga, professor of neurology and
director of the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging.
Images from the study are available online for viewing or
downloading from here
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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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