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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It seems a bit odd that the construction industry is going on a spending campaign to persuade smart young graduates to go into the trade. I am surprised that young people really need persuading. In this age of job offshoring, redundancies in the City and suchlike, it actually makes a lot of sense to get a skill in an area that cannot be easily outsourced. Many people in the construction, plumbing and electrical trades seem to be well off, far more so in fact than some young graduate toiling away in an office job. And thanks to new British regulations designed to prevent homeowners from performing any DIY activity more complex than install a shelf or rewire a plug – for their own good! – demand for construction and home maintenance professionals looks set to go on rising into the distance.
Anyone with a supposedly “secure” job ought to think about adding another, non-outsourceable, skill. One thing I always notice about British plumbers, for example, is that they all drive Jaguars or Mercedes. It is not rocket science to figure out why.
The fine U.S. blogger and libertarian scholar, Tyler Cowen, who’s blog Marginal Revolution is well worth a visit (as if I did not have enough things to read, aarrgghh, Ed) has started a specialist blog devoted to tracking developments and medical research surrounding avian flu. Tyler is clearly worried about the spread of new and more powerful viruses and the threat this poses to the health to millions of people around the world.
Rather interesting, I think, that the Internet, which helps to spread ideas with the speed of a virus, is now spawning blogs which are devoted to actual, existing viruses.
I attended a one-day conference on the EU Constitution today, drawing together an eclectic mixture of people from all parts of the political spectrum, both British and foreign, and all united on the need to get a decisive No vote in the event that Mr Blair decides to hold a referendum on one (let’s pray it is not done by postal vote, god help us). I attended the morning session and drifted home for lunch with my head still ringing with one of the best speeches by a politician I have heard for years.
The politician’s name is Steve Radford and he is a Liberal Party councillor in England. His party is the bit that refused to merge with the old Social Democrats and decided to keep the flame of Gladstone, Richard Cobden and Joe Grimmond burning bright. Well, if Mr Radford’s performance was a guide, the Liberal Party is a very interesting outfit indeed. He denounced the European Union’s economic tariffs most effectively by holding up a bag of sugar and pointed out that the price of the bag is inflated fourfold by tariffs. He denounced the rampant corruption, cronyism and lack of democratic accountability of the EU, a situation which will get only worse if the EU Constitution becomes a fact. He was passionate in making the free market case – all too rare these days, and frequently very funny.
It is refreshing to hear an actual big-L Liberal refer to the anti-Corn Law League and the great campaign to promote free trade by the likes of Richard Cobden. I don’t know about all his views on other subjects, but if every member of the Liberal Party were like this man, I’d very seriously consider voting for it.
I hope we haven’t heard the last of this gentleman.
The UK Labour Party, having set in train the laws making possible the recent postal voting scandal in Birmingham, are no doubt hoping voters forget all about it in a day or so. Former Home Secretary David Blunkett, however, has done his bit to keep the light shining on the issue with a typically idiotic proposal: solve the fraud problem with ID cards.
So, let’s get this right. The government, having created a system ripe for fraud and abuse, has one of its former members suggest that it be dealt with creating a system ripe for fraud and abuse.
The Tories should give up now. They cannot compete with genius like this.
(Side observation: this whole affair underscores why some libertarians don’t believe that democracy is a particularly reliable firewall against the corruption of power).
How do scientists work? Do they spend a lot of their time holed up in big buildings with lots of fancy equipment, work in large teams or mostly alone, with rumpled air and just a blackboard and lump of chalk trying to figure out the laws of physics? What sort of social lives do they lead and how do they handle the political, business and personal demands that come their way? How do they deal with hostility from jealous colleagues, skeptical review boards and college principals worried about expanding their budgets?
If you ever wanted to know some of the answers to these questions as well as have a rattling good yarn told, then this book, an old classic by Gregory Benford, fits the bill. I have been engrossed in it for the last few days and I won’t spoil for any would-be readers by giving the ending or basic plot away. Let’s just say that this book actually gave me the feeling of actually working and living in a science lab, of hanging around scientists in the early 60s and later, in a sort of crumbling, environmentally troubled 1990s. Strongly recommended.
Interesting story here that a firm which is said to be behind a lot of the spam messages hitting our mailboxes could go bust. Perhaps, just perhaps a corner might be turned in the current battle against spammers. I used to think that one man’s junk mail message was another’s piece of legitimate advertising, but the relentless offensive and downright moronic crud I have to sweep from my computer each day has made me change my mind. The effectiveness of the Internet as a business and social tool has been seriously blunted by this phenomenon.
I still don’t really know whether spam can be best dealt with legally, economically or through some other means. What I do know is that I won’t be shedding any tears at the demise of one of the most prolific producers of this stuff in the world.
He has gone. As I said a few days ago, Pope John Paul II was one of the great figures of our age. However controversial a figure he may have been for his views on issues like abortion, birth control and capitalism, the late Pope was, in my eyes, a hero for playing a part in giving people in Eastern Europe the confidence to bring the Soviet Empire down.
In the days and weeks to come, people far more qualified than me will want to draw out the implications of the life of a very great Pole. At this point, all this lapsed Christian-can can say, is, “Thank You.”
The Guardian newspaper reports that two-thirds of the world’s resources have been “used up”, so with only a third left, the crunch cannot be far away for Planet Earth. (Let’s hope Hollywood is on the case). The splendid Cafe Hayek blog nicely chews up and spits out this Malthusian argument here.
I have a question. If the resources of the Earth are finite and everything eventually succumbs to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, then by the logic employed by the deepest of Greens, even if we recycle all our goods and live in mud huts, then at some point, the game is up, we are all doomed, the end is nigh. So my question would be that if this is so, then why not live life to the full and enjoy this “finite” world while we have it? Let’s get those SUVs, build those spacecraft, take those lavish holidays, create those new technologies. It is all going to end anyway, so enjoy!
Of course, the idea that resources are finite has been challenged by the late and much-missed Julian L. Simon. The Ultimate Resource is his masterwork. And what is the ultimate resource? You probably have guessed – the grey stuff between your ears.
The brilliant new blog, Nanny Knows Best, has an item on the latest piece of nannying insanity, namely, bans on adverts that mix images of sex and alcohol. God forbid that alcohol should be sold on the basis that it is to do with fun, ooooh noooo. We cannot have the poor deluded moppets otherwise known as the British population led down that dangerous path, can we?
It does of course mean that lots of one’s favourite films will have to be doctored lest the image of Sean Connery or Humphrey Bogart sipping a drink and chatting up a lady leads one to get the wrong idea about the sauce.
It is enough to drive one to the bottle.
I am watching the televised appearance of Pope John Paul at the Vatican at the moment. The old fella has only been able to say a few words for his regular Easter message to the masses thronging below in St Peter’s Square. It cannot surely be very long before he steps off this mortal coil.
How should yours truly, a lapsed Anglican, think about what this man represents? Well, I am going to put any reflections on his contribution to the Catholic church, or his views about abortion, etc, to one side and focus on a more worldly fact about his extraordinary life and career. The Pope was, in my view, one of the three or four great men (and one great woman) who helped bring the Soviet Union, that evil and decrepit empire, crashing to its knees. Along with Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Gorbachev and arguably, the power of cheap television advertising, the Pope helped bring about communism’s demise.
I do not share the Pope’s faith, but in reflecting on his life on this Easter Sunday, it was hard not to suppress a lump in the throat. In my book, he is one of the giants of our age.
Airport security gets ever more surreal. Yesterday, I set off with my fiancee for the lovely island of Malta to spend the Easter break. At London’s Gatwick airport I had my first real experience of the wonderful charm for which security staff are famed, having never really had a glitch before. My hand luggage was seized by a woman who asked that I opened the bag. I was happy to do so. She fished out three novels from the bag, and after loudly making some rude comments about them and sniggering to a colleague (which was thoroughly unprofessional on her part) she picked up a small hair brush, and put it through an X-ray machine. She handed it back and with a grim expression pronounced that a hairbrush, at a certain angle, looked like a gun. Yes, a gun.
In future it is definitely going in my heavy luggage. It really makes me wonder about what your average security guard thinks a gun is actually supposed to look like, let alone as to whether any of them have used a gun. Or maybe they comb their hair with an automatic.
Oh, and the next time I fly down I’ll take a couple of porn magazines to really give some security jobsworth the vapours. Heh.
Some readers may have heard of the Institute for Justice, a U.S. organisation which fights the legal battles of property owners resisting the odious power of what is called eminent domain. Eminent domain powers, which were originally designed to give governments the ability to seize private property to build facilities for so-called “public use” like an airforce runway, prison or road, have also been used by said governments to build things like condos purely in order to boost tax revenues. It goes without saying that such a power is a powerful force of corruption, since a large property developer who wants to build a supermarket or whatever can get his political chums to use ED to kick small businessmen and homeowners out of their property. The politicians get lots of campaign contributions. The whole business stinks, and flagrantly abuses property rights. In any event, if the re-development of an area really made financial sense, that would be reflected in the increased prices of the houses and shops targeted for demolition, in which case the issue can be left to the market.
The Institute for Justice is, quite possibly, the most important libertarian organisation now in existence. I can also recommend the Free Space blog for regular updates on this issue and I also love the book, Defending the Undefendable, by Walter Block, on the same subject.
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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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