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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I have never really grokked what makes Apple loveable to people – their style is attractive, sure, but it strikes me as very 50’s “modern.” And it all looks so identical, little rows of computers all looking exactly the same, little iPods all exactly the same, little stores all with exactly the same arrangement, etc. It all seems so mindlessly conformist, these endless plastic rounded boxes all in antiseptic white. It looks totalitarian.
This insight into Apple Computer’s design was made by the reader Balfegor, in response to a post by Ann Althouse on the merits or otherwise of the offerings of that computer company.
I myself am so frustrated with the erratic performance and system bloat of Windoze XP that I am resolved to not purchase another item of software from Microsoft, and I am tossing up between buying an Apple or building my own Linux based system. I have heard great things about Apple’s recent offerings, but I had always had an objection to the company’s products which I could never put my finger on until I read Balfegor’s comments.
Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent.
– Louis D. Brandeis
You know, being a test pilot isn’t always the healthiest business in the world.
Alan B. Shepard, aviator and astronaut. I also rather like his terse message to Mission Control at the time of his flight in 1961: “Why don’t you fix your little problems and light this candle”.
I am sure he would be thrilled at the private sector space ventures that Dale has been tirelessly writing about lately.
If I were his lawyer, I would point out that using a government office for having sex with his secretary was far less ruinous for Britain than how he might otherwise have been using it. While Prescott was harmlessly fucking his secretary, the rest of the cabinet were probably hatching schemes to make us all line up and be fingerprinted. Put it this way: would you rather he was shafting his secretary, or the nation? We got off lightly.
– Harry Hutton
There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served.
– Jane Jacobs.
I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it’s the government.
– Woody Allen
Few new truths have ever won their way against the resistance of established ideas save by being overstated.
Isaiah Berlin, reminding us of the value of stating truths over and over, even if you fear you are just preaching to the converted.
“Power corrupts. Powerpoint corrupts absolutely.”
– Edward R. Tufte, professor emeritus of political science, computer science and statistics, and graphic design at Yale
“Partly, the Russian system succeeds because, in contrast to the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower.”
– John Kenneth Galbraith (1984), an American intellectual who passed away yesterday.
The frankly shocking discovery that this blog is being used as an educational aid for A-Level politics students is proof, if proof were ever needed, that state education is failing our children.
– Guido Fawkes yesterday (knowing that no-one will agree)
In an odd sort of way, contemporary soft leftists are both obsessed with politics and unpolitical at the same time. That is, their political involvement seems as much about showing what kinds of people they are (caring, concerned etc) as making a difference. The plausibility of a political strategy is less important than being involved.
– Andrew Norton, Research Fellow at the excellent Centre for Independent Studies, editor of Policy magazine and resident at Catallaxy
The other day I received a letter which contained this message: “Darling, I adore you and I cannot live without you so if you don’t marry me I’ll kill myself”. I was rather disturbed by this and even more so when I saw that the letter was addressed to “occupant”.
The inimitable Tom Lehrer, composer of ‘Poisoning Pigeons in the Park’ and other gems.
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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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