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No one worries too much today about causing pain and suffering to our computer software (although we do comment extensively on the ability of software to cause us suffering), but when future software has the intellectual, emotional, and moral intelligence of biological humans, this will become a genuine concern. – Ray Kurzweil, How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed. At some point a computer ceases to become property and becomes an individual. September 11th, 2013 | 52 comments - (Comments are closed)
 In short, by 2013 the Republican Establishment had proved itself so alien to the domestic concerns of that majority of Americans who dislike the direction in which the ruling class is pushing it, that the party was becoming irrelevant. Despite the Bush Administration’s disastrous commitment to Nation-Building however, the memory of Ronald Reagan’s and Dwight Eisenhower’s forceful, levelheaded patriotism still lingered about the party. But by urging war on Syria more vehemently than Obama, the Republican Establishment may have finished off the Republican Party, as we know it. Surely it has discredited itself. September 10th, 2013 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
A generation from now, Americans will be richer, more leisured, healthier and longer-lived than ever. That sentence could have been written at any time since the Mayflower landed (at least of the settlers; it was a different story for the indigenous tribes). It would always have prompted scepticism; and it would always have been true. – Daniel Hannan begins his response to America 3.0, an optimistic book about the historic origins of and future consequences of the exceptionalness of America, by James Bennett and Michael Lotus. Hannan shares their optimism. September 6th, 2013 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
“I’d be seriously dubious about any “special relationship” with someone who habitually read all my emails, to be honest.” – A quote I saw via Facebook. September 4th, 2013 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
We need these government training schemes to produce skilled workers, they have not learnt any meaningful skills in, er, government schools – Samizdata commenter Mr. Ed September 3rd, 2013 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
These proceedings are closed. – General Douglas MacArthur, bringing World War II to an end as if it were a parish council meeting, sixty-eight years ago today. September 2nd, 2013 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
(The USA has) limited government? Joking right? The USA spends nearly half the entire world’s military spending (yes, that is more than Russia, China, UK, France and Germany combined) and locks up more of its population per capita than any other place on this planet. Yes, more that those ‘paragons of liberty’ Russia, Burma, Cuba, China etc. It applies its laws and taxes to its hapless citizens extra-territorially as if they were branded livestock who had strayed off the ranch, which only the African neo-Stalinist state of Eritrea does. If that is what limited government looks like, I would hate to see what unlimited government looks like. – Perry de Havilland September 1st, 2013 | 82 comments - (Comments are closed)
Something strange just happened. Parliament has asserted itself over the Government. It doesn’t occur very often, and I can’t remember the last time the government lost a vote on a foreign policy matter. I am reminded of Viscount Cranborne‘s famous mea culpa after having been rapped over the knuckles for exceeding his authority. Like him, the executive “rushed in, like an ill-trained spaniel”, only to be chastised by the master it had almost forgotten it had. Of course, the matter is not settled by any means. Parliament may wake up hung over and remorseful, and I’m sure the spaniel will be prowling the darkened halls of power, looking for someone to sink its teeth into, but for once it feels like we’re in a parliamentary democracy rather than an elected dictatorship. August 30th, 2013 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
By any reasonable definition, Maj Nidal Hasan’s 2009 rampage at Fort Hood, Texas was a terrorist attack. He proudly admits that he killed in the service of the Taliban, and witnesses say that he shouted “Allahu Ackbar!” as he fired. The Obama government, though, continues to insist that Hasan’s attack constitutes “workplace violence.” Well, as far as The Community Organizer is concerned, his way of dealing with Islamist terrorism is to deny its existence. Deny it enough, and it will go away. (In case anyone starts accusing me of fear-mongering, I would immediately point out that accepting that there is a problem is not the same at all as knowing what specifically to do about it.) August 29th, 2013 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
For years, particularly with the advent of the Internet, people have been griping about lessening attention spans. But if someone can watch an entire season of a TV series in one day, doesn’t that show an incredible attention span? When the story is good enough, people can watch something three times the length of an opera. August 24th, 2013 | 30 comments - (Comments are closed)
The spooks are not stupid. There are two ways they can respond to this in a manner consistent with their current objectives. They can try to shut down the press — a distinct possibility within the UK, but still incredibly dangerous — or they can shut down the open internet, in order to stop the information leakage over that channel and, more ambitiously, to stop the public reading undesirable news. I think they’re going for the latter option, although I doubt they can make it stick. Let me walk you through the early stages of what I think is going to happen. In the UK it’s fairly obvious what the mechanism will be. Prime Minister David Cameron has thrown his weight behind mandatory opt-out porn filtering at an ISP level, to protect our children from a torrent of filth on the internet. (He’s turned to Chinese corporation Huawei for the tool in question.) All new domestic ISP customer accounts in the UK will be filtered by default, unless the owner opts out. There’s also the already-extant UK-wide child pornography filter operated by the Internet Watch Foundation, although its remit is limited to items that are probably illegal to possess (“probably” because that’s a determination for a court of law to make). And an existing mechanism — the Official Secrets Act — makes it an offense to possess, distribute, or publish state secrets. Traditionally newspapers were warned off certain state secrets by a process known as a Defense Advisory Notice, warning that publication would result in prosecution. It doesn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to foresee the creation of a law allowing for items subject to a DA-Notice to be filtered out of the internet via a national-level porn filter to protect the precious eyeballs of the citizenry from secrets that might trouble their little heads. On the other hand, the UK may not have a First Amendment but it does have a strong tradition of press freedom, and there are signs that the government has already overreached itself. We’ll know things are really going to hell in a handbasket when The Guardian moves its editorial offices to Brazil … August 23rd, 2013 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
“No matter how much the government controls the economic system, any problem will be blamed on whatever small zone of freedom that remains.” – Sheldon Richman August 22nd, 2013 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
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