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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Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Gear program is, without any shadow of a doubt, the finest piece of current broadcasting on British television; I will brook no argument here. It is also the only place on the BBC where, except for the Hutton affair and the related war against Iraq, fierce dissent against the centralising thrust of New Labour’s Euro-loving socialism is both tolerated and welcomed.
I would love to see Jezzer’s contract, the one he signed a couple of years back, to revive the moribund Top Gear franchise. ‘I want a race track,’ he will have said. ‘I want a large garage-cum-showroom for a studio, and I want to make as many closet libertarian and anti-Tony Blair statements as I damn well please.’
The BBC won’t have liked it, but with one of their biggest money-spinners, the Top Gear Magazine, in a probable sales decline, without its matching TV series, and programs like the cunningly titled Fifth Gear picking up multi-million sized audiences on rival terrestrial channels, there was only one option for even the BBC, that car-hating, carrot munching, First Class train riding, pampered elite of Old West London town. Even with the compulsory tithe of the BBC license fee, even they, the chosen ones, have to sometimes make programs which Jonny Englander, at home with his shotguns and his bulldogs, might actually want to watch, to stop them turning off the BBC altogether in favour of such exotic delights as Men and Motors. → Continue reading: Jeremy Clarkson: Surely God in disguise
I don’t know why I yesterday took a random dip into Stephen R. Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, but I did, and I came across the following striking passage about the psychologist Victor Frankl. I think it was just coincidence that Frankl got a mention in one of the comments on this, although having chanced upon this passage, maybe that made me really notice it.
Anyway, here it is:
Frankl was a determinist raised in the tradition of Freudian psychology, which postulates that whatever happens to you as a child shapes your character and personality and basically governs your whole life. The limits and parameters of your life are set, and, basically, you can’t do much about it.
Frankl was also a psychiatrist and a Jew. He was imprisoned in the death camps of Nazi Germany, where he experienced things that were so repugnant to our sense of decency that we shudder to even repeat them.
His parents, his brother, and his wife died in the camps or were sent to the gas ovens. Except for his sister, his entire family perished. Frankl himself suffered torture and innumerable indignities, never knowing from one moment to the next if his path would lead to the ovens or if he would be among the “saved” who would remove the bodies or shovel out the ashes of those so fated.
One day, naked and alone in a small room, he began to become aware of what he later called “the last of the human freedoms” – the freedom his Nazi captors could not take away. They could control his entire environment, they could do what they wanted to his body, but Victor Frankl himself was a self-aware being who could look as an observer at his very involvement. His basic identity was intact. He could decide within himself how all of this was going to affect him. Between what happened to him, or the stimulus, and his response to it, was his freedom or power to choose that response.
In the midst of his experiences, Frankl would project himself into different circumstances, such as lecturing to his students after his release from the death camps. He would describe himself in the classroom, in his mind’s eye, and give his students the lessons he was learning during his very torture.
Through a series of such disciplines – mental, emotional, and moral, principally using memory and imagination – he exercised his small, embryonic freedom until it grew larger and larger, until he had more freedom than his Nazi captors. They had more liberty, more options to choose from in their environment; but he had more freedom, more internal power to exercise his options. He became an inspiration to those around him, even to some of the guards. He helped others find meaning in their suffering and dignity in their prison existence.
In the midst of the most degrading circumstances imaginable, Franki used the human endowment of self-awareness to discover a fundamental principle about the nature of man: Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.
My emboldenings are Covey’s italics.
I’m sure I don’t need to explain why I consider those paragraphs to be worthy of the attention of Samizdata readers.
But I have a question, relating to one particular matter raised by Covey, which is the very definite way he uses the words ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’. ‘Liberty’ he uses to denote external circumstances, while ‘freedom’ is more like an inner mental experience. Liberty is political and perhaps also economic. Freedom is psychological, even existential. So, are these regular usages that I have been unaware of all these years? (I confess – for I’m not proud of this and have always meant to sort it out in my mind some day – that I have tended to use these two words interchangeably.) Or is Covey unusual in knowing when to say freedom and when liberty? Or are others equally definite about the different meanings of these words, but in different ways to Covey?
As often with me here, comments are not merely welcome; they are positively invited, not to say solicited.
Interesting legal issues are raised, I feel, by this story:
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Call it spam rage: A Silicon Valley computer programmer has been arrested for threatening to torture and kill employees of the company he blames for bombarding his computer with Web ads promising to enlarge his penis.
In one of the first prosecutions of its kind in the state that made “road rage” famous, Charles Booher, 44, was arrested on Thursday and released on bail for making repeated threats to staff of a Canadian company between May and July.
Booher threatened to send a “package full of Anthrax spores” to the company, to “disable” an employee with a bullet and torture him with a power drill and ice pick; and to hunt down and castrate the employees unless they removed him from their e-mail list, prosecutors said.
He used return e-mail addresses including Satan@hell.org.
In a telephone interview with Reuters on Friday, Booher acknowledged that he had behaved badly but said his computer had been rendered almost unusable for about two months by a barrage of pop-up advertising and e-mail.
Here’s what happened: I go to their Web site and start complaining to them, would you please, please, please stop bothering me,” he said. “It just sort of escalated … and I sort of lost my cool at that point.
I believe that Charles Booher speaks for many of us. In some ways, it strikes me, this resembles the Tony Martin case. The complaint against Martin was that he has shot one of his burglar-tormenters in the back. But since this burglar had attacked him repeatedly and since his latest attack provided yet further evidence that, if he could, he would be back, it made sense to me for Martin to shoot him in the back in self defence, against his next attack.
Booher requested, then demanded, that his computer to be left alone. But alas, Booher was unaware that his replies merely proved that he and his email were real, so the bombardments immediately intensified. But given that Booher was unlikely ever to catch these miscreants, was it not reasonable for him to threaten complete ghastliness in the unlikely event that he did? Had he known with certainty who they were, such bloodcurdling threats as Booher’s would have been excessive. More mundane remedies would have been sufficient. However, for people who behave as Booher’s tormentors behaved, is there not a case for the reintroduction of something like hanging, drawing and quartering? Or maybe crucifixion?
I agree, probably a bit over the top. But Booher’s rather extreme reaction does serve to remind us all of just what a problem spam is now becoming for many people, and that if the free market does not spread around some answers to the problems of people like Booher, governments will be only to ready to use his plight to impose their own much more draconian arrangements, in the form of alleged cures that will almost certainly turn out worse than the disease, but whose worseness will only become obvious when it is all in place and impossible then to reverse.
I for one would love to have a comment string explaining how ‘anti-spam,’ software works, what principles it follows, how it avoids stopping good stuff while still stopping the bad, and so on. Maybe Booher’s problem has already been solved, and the only problem that remains is telling him and everyone like him what this solution is.
What an amazing game. What an amazing number of mistakes. What an amazing result. Jonny Wilkinson, can I have your babies, please? What a star. I’ve just aged about 300 years, watching the match, which went into overtime, and I’m just about to watch the post-match commentary, but what a sensational result. England. Rugby world cup champions. Fantastic.
Oh, and a few words for David Campese. No worries, mate.
From dc.internet.com:
U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D.-MA) introduced legislation Thursday to allow cell phone customers to choose at no cost to not have their numbers listed in a national wireless directory. Although there is currently no such service, the wireless industry hopes to roll out directories next year similar to the landline 411 call assistance service.
The bill, known as the Wireless 411 Privacy Act, would require wireless carriers to have “clear pre-authorization” before listing an existing customer’s name and number in a directory. New customers would have to be given a “clear conspicuous mechanism” to decline to participate in any wireless directory assistance database.
The legisation further requires that no fee be charged for opting out of a national wireless directory.
Clearly this is White Rose Relevant, but taht last bit bothers me. “Choosing at no cost” sounds to me like loading costs onto other people.
A small independent label in Great Britain, Loca Records, is reversing the traditional record industry business model. It is giving the rights to the artists – and anyone else who wants to use the music, too.
The idea is to foster experimentation and freedom in music by building a stable of free music which can be shared, remixed and manipulated by anyone. Songs are not locked by digital rights management technology.
Artists earn a percentage of any record sales; Loca Records makes its money through record sales, gigs it promotes and merchandise. David Berry, managing director of Loca Records and an artist himself, known as Meme says:
You’re free to copy it, give it to your friends and you can play it. If you’re really interested, you can sample it and then re-release it. Because at the end of the day, if you sample the work and create a fantastic remix, we think you’re entitled to try and make some money from it.
Loca Records licenses its music using Creative Commons and offers free copyright licenses to anyone who wants to share his work with the public while reserving some rights. Using these licenses, Loca Records permits anyone to copy and distribute the content, make derivative works and sell it, as long as they attribute the work to the original creator and distribute it under the same “share alike” license.
I do worry that copyright is getting out of control. This gives us an opportunity to create a new culture and a new sound. If we are greedy and we lock down our culture now, there will be nothing for the next generation.
Apparently, some artists at first do not know what to make of the new type of contract, but once they understand how it works, their response turns to positive.
There are others that are experimenting with new forms of music distribution and collaboration. Magnatune, an independent label in Berkeley, California, also offers music for download and sharing, and Opsound invites any musician to submit songs to its website, where others can listen, share and remix them. Both labels license the music using Creative Commons.
As David Kusek of the Berklee College of Music points out, historically, building upon one another’s music was common. Jazz, in particular, was based on improvisation, theme and variation and “who could outdo each other” with each interpretation of a piece.
It was the differences that were more interesting. We lost a lot of the spontaneity that was inherent in music when it became a package that could be stamped a million times and resold. The existing labels of the last 50 or 60 years have been all about controlling the expression, the packaging, the distribution and the scarcity of the music in order to turn a profit. That forced music to be defined as a product. It can be a product, but in its pure form it’s entertainment.
I am all in favour of new business model for the record industry. The reason for the falling profits is not just by-passing of copyright and licenses by their customers but ridiculous pricing and distribution of their product. Let’s hope artists take notice.
RFID coverage from ZDNet UK:
A global alliance of opponents to the rollout of radio frequency identification tagging systems are demanding that companies stop deploying them until crucial issues such as privacy are addressed.
Over 30 civil liberties and privacy groups have demanded a suspension to the deployment of radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging systems until a number of issues surrounding the controversial technology have been addressed.
These organisations, including Britain’s Foundation for Information Policy Reseach and Privacy International, have backed a position statement on the use of RFID on consumer products that was issued on Thursday.
It claims that RFID, if used improperly, represents a major threat to consumer privacy and civil liberties. This follows earlier protests against RFID by campaigners, and is thought to be the first formal global alliance against the technology.
I am pleased to offer a shout-out for a dandy new informational website, the Bellicose Women’s Brigade, put together in part by regular Samizdata commenter analog kid. The term was originated, I believe, by the Ubiquitous One in response to the decidedly militant response to the 9/11 attacks by women in the US. One interesting side effect of this attack on American soil was a change in the attitude of many women towards aggressive self-defense, both in the international and domestic spheres. Women began buying guns and taking self-defense classes in unprecedented numbers.
This is where the BWB website comes in. It is a resource for people who are new to the self-defense and guns thing. My quick review of its contents shows a nice selection of accessible essays on the essential topics (gun safety, gun selection, and so forth). Gun geekery is kept firmly in the background.
Sadly, this information is mostly academic for our British cousins currently laboring under a most atrocious denial of their right to own and use guns for self-defense. Still, for those of us living in more enlightened realms, this looks like a good place to send someone who is thinking about buying a gun for their own security, but wants good information they can review in the privacy of their own home.
Exactly a week ago, last Friday evening, I attended a discussion at the home of CNE boss Tim Evans, one of his Putney Debates. Alex Singleton spoke eloquently about what a fine thing free markets are and how difficult it is for the government to do as well.
Also present at the discussion was a long-time friend of London libertarianism by the name of Bruce. Bruce has been living in Spain for the last decade or so, but is now back in London, and during the discussion he said something very interesting which stuck in my mind, and which I now realise deserves the attention of this blog.
For as along as I can remember, whenever we’ve met up, Bruce has been telling me that the Spaniards have had a much more sensible attitude towards the EU than the British, which is that if they don’t like any particular EUro-regulation or EUro-imposition, they just ignore it. Why, he would ask, can’t the British just learn to do the same? That’s a sentiment I think we’ve heard here quite a lot also, whenever we’ve been arguing about the nuances of the EU.
This time, however, he said something different. Apparently, in Spain, a class of pestilential busybodies who take EUro-stupidity seriously is starting to form and to make its pestilential presence felt, and the Spaniards are starting to notice this, and to get rather fidgety. To put it another way, instead of the sensible Spanish practice – of ignoring all this EUro-nonsense and just carrying on baking bread, fishing for fish, being a bit rude to the occasional ethnic minority, driving as they please, dodging VAT, and so on and so on, the way they always have – spreading to Britain, the British practice, of taking all such drivel seriously, on account of it being the law and all that, is now spreading to Spain. And my guess would be, this tendency isn’t confined to Spain.
This official bEUrocratic infestation process, if it is indeed happening, strikes me as a lot more significant than the grumbling that is now occurring throughout the Euro area about inflation, because this ‘inflation’ could just be a one-off effect from the switch from the local currencies to the Euro. Yes, prices have gone up a gut-wrenching amount, and a lot more than is being officially admitted, but presumably that effect will calm down, and in due course be forgotten. But this hideous tribe of meddling EUro-despots look like being a permanent and ever-growing presence, and the hatred of them seems likely only to grow and grow.
I don’t have any links to stories which might back up any of this, but of course commenters may well be able to correct that omission.
The conference of the Libertarian Alliance and Libertarian International will be in London starts tomorrow and it is not too late to come if you wish. It last from Saturday 22nd to Sunday 23rd November 2003. It is possible to register and pay on-line.
The speakers include fellow Samizdatista David Carr and serial Samizdata commenter Paul Coulam.
I hope to meet up with a few of you there.
This remark by ‘G’ posted by Iraqi blogger Salam Pax pretty much perfectly sums up why I have such contempt for most of the protestors:
[T]ell your friends in London that G in Baghdad would have appreciated them much more if they had demonstrated against the atrocities of saddam. And if you could ask them when will be the next demonstration to support the people of north Korea, the democratic republic of Congo and Iran?
Amen to that, Bro!
I did not see the spectacular solar storm last month. It turns out I was wrong inferring from my failure that there was no auroral display visible in Belfast. A week or so ago I was chatting with a fellow who worked for me in two different companies over the course of perhaps eight years… and found that not only did he see an auroral display – he photographed it!
I hope for the sake of his server the Samizdata effect is not quite so dire as the Reynolds Effect…
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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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