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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Remember what a fun day it was when the Rainbow Dildo Butt Monkey came to Redbridge children’s library?
I posted about it here, and asked, “How did this happen? Why did no one question it?” The answer was the title of that post: it was a bad career move to be the first one to object. Objecting would have marked you out as a prude, a bigot, a hater.
The Daily Mail‘s headline writer probably thought his next chance to write a headline like “Parents’ disgust as actor in rainbow coloured monkey costume with fake penis and nipples appears at library event encouraging children to read” would not soon come again.
He need not have worried. Today’s Mail gave him another opportunity to practise his art: “Balenciaga apologizes for bondage-themed campaign featuring a child and excerpt from SCOTUS ruling on child pornography – fashion house vows to sue photographer behind it”
Fashion brand Balenciaga is apologizing for a photoshoot with a child holding a teddy bear dressed in a BDSM outfit that outraged many
Perhaps even more bizarrely one of the photos hides an excerpt from the US Supreme Court opinion in United States v. Williams, which upheld part of a federal child pornography law
Balenciaga appear to be laying the blame at the photographer, Gabriele Galimberti
They released a statement apologizing for the shoot and seemingly suggesting they would take legal action against Galimberti and anyone else involved
‘We sincerely apologize for any offense our holiday campaign may have caused,’ they wrote
They continued: ‘We take this matter very seriously and are taking legal action against the parties responsible for creating the set’
One thing that comes with the territory of being a libertarian is a lifetime of explaining that one can very much not wish to say “Ban this sick filth”, while still thinking the thing concerned is sick filth. Whether for racism or “edgy” adverts that promote sexualised images of children, I think the moral obligation on libertarians to condemn morally bad speech is greater, not lesser, because we do not seek to silence the speaker.
From what I have seen of the adverts they managed to stay this side of the line of actually violating the child actors themselves, but “the makers of this advertisement would probably escape jail time” is not much of a recommendation. Balenciaga as a company ought to be ashamed. And enough with the weasel words about it all being the fault of the photographer. Someone at the company signed this off. Why didn’t he or she take one look at the juxtaposition of a sad-eyed child and BDSM imagery and have Gabriele Galimberti escorted off the premises by security? The answer is the same as for the Redbridge Rainbow Dildo Butt Monkey. It was a bad career move to be the first to object.
The Autumn Statement was a tragic miscalculation, the final failure of a project to undo the gravest mistakes of the New Labour era and shift the UK in a more dynamic, more conservative direction. Lacking any meaningful plan for economic growth, and postponing many of the most difficult decisions on spending until after the next election, the Statement passed the costs of a ballooning state onto the productive parts of the economy when disposable incomes are collapsing. It was a victory for the Treasury technocrats who have resisted every attempt to move the UK away from Brownite orthodoxy.
– Telegraph editorial
The brutal demise of the Truss administration following the mini-budget has been widely attributed to the market’s reaction to the expectation of unfunded borrowing occasioned by tax cuts and the fuel price cap. To the contrary: the market’s behaviour was quite clearly a response to the actions — and inactions — of the Bank of England, before, during and after the mini-budget.
One part of, but not all of, the case against the Bank has been cogently made by Narayana Kocherlakota, a well-respected economist and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, in a Washington Post piece entitled “Markets didn’t oust Truss — the Bank of England did”. Kocherlakota’s view was that the Bank of England was responsible for the crisis, through “poor financial regulation and highly subjective crisis management”. Outside the UK chatterati, this view is widely supported.
– Jon Moynihan
“Today’s Autumn Statement was the latest confirmation that at some point British politicians replaced the idea that ‘people should be able to live well’ with ‘pensioners should be able to live well, and damn the rest’. You are expected to scrimp, save, forgo the pleasures of youth, postpone having a family, and possibly never have one, in order that your money and earnings can be directed to the most noble cause there is: propping up the value of rental properties, and paying for the healthcare and pensions of Boomers.”
– Sam Ashworth-Hayes.
As I noted earlier this week, there is a problem with a lot of people not bothering to get a job, and there are issues there. Some of you have argued that young people, weighed by debt and alarmed by where things are going, are giving up on work and ambition. I think this is a bit glib – gaining work skills and character is still important, for all economic and political weathers. There’s no doubt though that the sort of message coming out of today’s autumn statement by Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, is that if you are ambitious and fortunate enough to be earning a lot of money, even more of that is going to the State, and in many cases, to support the older generation. We are seeing, I think, the politics of ageing right in front of our eyes.
As he announces his candidacy once again, Trump can boast of the impressive feat of being just as unpopular as the dreadful Joe Biden. A recent poll suggests that 65 per cent of Americans do not want Trump to run again; the exact same number do not want Biden to run again.
– Tom Slater
“Almost unbelievably, nearly a quarter of our working age population is reported to have some form of long-term illness or disability that in most cases prevents them from working. The numbers are more alarming still among younger cohorts, which theoretically should be the healthiest and most able to work. Among 16 to 24-year-olds, one in eight are being signed off with long term health conditions.”
– Jeremy Warner, talking about the state of the UK economy. Let’s be blunt: a large chunk of the population in the UK are lazy, stupid and with all the ambition and zest for life of a lump of concrete. In the 21st Century, it seems frankly absurd that a quarter of the work-age population are ill or incapable of doing anything. It is a disgrace.
In the 1480s, complaints lodged by Casimir’s envoys accumulated in Moscow: “thieves” from Muscovy were raiding across the border, burning, and pillaging villages, sowing terror. Ivan professed ignorance and claimed innocence, but clearly the raids had his backing. They were part of a systematic strategy for destabilising the border. Towards the end of the decade they escalated outrageously. In 1487, one of Ivan’s brothers occupied a slice of borderland on the Lithuanian side, and Ivan appointed a governor in districts traditionally part of Lithuania. A raid in 1488 carried off seven thousand of Casimir’s subjects.
– Felipe Fernandez Armesto, 1492, p164, 2009. Reminds me of something but I just can’t quite put my finger on it. Anyway, the Casimir mentioned was the head of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – yes, there was such a thing. The Ivan was not Ivan the Terrible but a predecessor.
The participants in our study, as well as those mentioned in the introduction and many others not included in our sample, are not fringe scientists. Most of them are leading figures: researchers and doctors who prior to the COVID-19 era had a respectable status, with many publications in the scientific literature, some of them with books and hundreds of publications, some headed academic or medical departments, some of them were editors of medical journals, and some had won significant awards. Nevertheless, as our findings show, they were not protected from censorship, nor from the suppression and defamation campaign launched against them. This fact indicates that the message is that no one is exempt from censorship and no academic or medical status, senior as it may be, is a guaranteed shield against it.
– Study: Censorship and Suppression of Covid‐19 Heterodoxy
The even interesting Perun has another very interesting talk titled: How lies destroy armies – Lies, coverups, and Russian failures in Ukraine.
Highly recommended.
Kazakh expat Azamat Junisbai has some very interesting observations seeking to explain wide support in Russia for the war against Ukraine.
Russian society famously underwent extreme upheavals in the 20th century. Revolutions, World Wars, emergence and collapse of the USSR – the dizzying magnitude of change and disruption is hard to exaggerate. Yet, amidst all the turmoil, one part of the Russian worldview persisted.
The remarkably stable and enduring phenomenon transcending different historical periods and regime types is the self-conception of Russia as a great power that brings good to those around it and Russian people as bearers of superior culture and morality. Deeply internalized, the idea of its own benevolence has long permeated and shaped Russian society. In this narrative, unlike the old European powers guilty of ruthless colonial conquest, Russia is a selfless bringer of culture, prosperity, and order.
The view of Russia as a big brother bestowing its blessings on the lesser people around it is ubiquitous among Russians of all political persuasions. In this narrative, Russia’s neighbours are perpetually indebted to it. The relationship is always unequal.
The word “gift” features prominently. The gifts include Russian language, literature, music, and art. But also science and, even, modernity itself. Naturally, in this worldview, Russians are superior and those on the receiving end of Russia’s largesse are expected to be grateful.
Russia’s view of Central Asians is unabashedly and unapologetically racist, of the “we taught you how to piss standing up” variety. Russia’s long-standing view of Ukrainians is more complex but equally pernicious and condescending.
Highly recommended, read the whole thing.
This is climate imperialism. Rich nations are only agreeing to help poor nations so long as they use energy sources that cannot lift themselves out of poverty.
Consider the case of Norway, Europe’s second-largest gas supplier after Russia. Last year it agreed to increase natural gas exports by 2 billion cubic meters, in order to alleviate energy shortages. At the same time, Norway is working to prevent the world’s poorest nations from producing their own natural gas by lobbying the World Bank to end its financing of natural gas projects in Africa.
– Michael Shellenberger
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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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