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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After a nightmare of some three months duration, Peter Bunch and Diana Thomas (Australia), Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer (USA), Georg Taubmann, Katrin Jelinek, Margrit Stebner and Silke Durrkopf (Germany) are safe. Personally I did not have hope that any, let alone all of them would live through the war. I am ecstatic to be so absolutely and totally wrong.
Although it was American Special Forces who extracted them, according to CNN it was the Northern Alliance who rescued them:
Taubmann said the eight were freed from the prison by anti-Taliban forces. “The Massood people came, and others from the alliance, and broke into the prison and just opened the doors … We were really scared, and then the alliance people came in … and we were free and we got out of prison and we walked through the city and the people came out of their houses and hugged us and greeted us, and they were all clapping …
We should note that far from hating them for being citizens of western coalition nations, the people of Ghazni were happy to see them safe and out of the hands of the hated Taliban. Far from gaining the enmity of the people of Afghanistan as many in the media would lead you to believe, they see us a friends taking common cause with them. We have both suffered terribly from the Taliban and their al Qaeda friends. The Afghans even more so than us.
I think if Afghans are the least bit angry at us, it is over one question only:
“What took you guys so long?”
Carla Howell is near a breakthrough in Massachusetts that will go down in history as the Second Boston Tea Party. Her “Initiative to End the Income Tax in Massachusetts” has now succeeded in collecting and delivering 101,139 signatures to the various town clerks for certification. This is a wide enough margin to ensure success even if the Clerks were hostile to the measure. They need only pickup the certified lists from those 351 Town Clerks on December 3rd and deliver them all to the State House by December 5th. Words cannot express the gratitude owed to her and her team.
This initiative to abolish the Massachusetts state income tax will appear on the ballot in 2002. It will generate an enormous amount of national publicity. How could anyone ignore such chutzpah? That people would actually dare to not just roll back, not just cap, but to actually abolish a major tax?
We might actually win this one. It is a possibility. Very few citizens actually want to pay taxes. Hardly anyone ever votes for a politician who says they want to raise taxes. But until now, no one has ever had the opportunity to directly vote on it, to “Just Say No” to taxation.
Carla and her team have done a magnificent job. She is once again proving herself to be the most effective local libertarians in our entire quarter century history as a political party. But they need help. These things do not pay for themselves. If you want to help her to fight the good fight, you should make a donation now and as often as you can afford to.
Win, Lose or Draw, we can make this the turning point. The point at which the growth of the State is not just slowed but actually reversed.
It is up to you.
On the sometimes inspired, sometimes misguided but always interesting anti-state.com site, there is an very interesting article about a major credit card company electing to use private binding arbitration rather than the coercive and clumsy state legal system to resolve disputes.
An interest development and, I suspect, an sign of things to come.
Herbert London, another voice of critical rationality, points out the self-destructive absurdity of post-modern ‘thought’ in his short but on-target article.
“This argument is mere subterfuge for the central postmodernist view that we don’t know what we mean when universal terms are used. In the September 11 attacks, I maintain Americans were not the least bit confused about terminology. We saw the face of evil; it did not require an interpreter.”
Yes, it really is that simple.
The fact that Bill Ayers was a Weather Underground member 30 years ago does not affect his right to express any view whatsoever. The Opinion Journal got it very wrong this time by coming out behind those who would prefer he just go away. True, his book and his expressed views are inappropriate and tasteless and bound to get a lot of people angy. That is not the issue.
The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States does not make exceptions for taste, timing or disagreeableness of content. So I think the Mary Ellen Keating from Barnes and Noble was spot on when she said:
Granted, we live in troubled times. The reprehensible acts of the terrorists were designed to promote fear, divisiveness, even hatred among fellow Americans. We cannot let them win. Removing Mr. Ayers’ book from our shelves or canceling a previously scheduled appearance is out of the question. To do so would be to give in to our fears, and ultimately to validate the position of our enemies.
If Mr. Ayers seems to be promoting blowing up buildings as a means of change, then we are free to stand outside with signs and express dissent. We are free to not buy his book. Those who feel so inclined are free to complain to Barnes and Noble (as some have done) and to take their business elsewhere if they so chose.
But from where I sit, Mary Ellen has a better understanding of what a free country is about than do the complainers. As I have said before, “A flag you can not burn is not worth fighting for”.
That is the difference between us and ‘them’.
For media establishment pundits ranging from lowly tabloid hacks all the way up to the Brahmins of academic political correctness, the world seems to be a much more intellectually hostile place since September 11 2001. Previously unchallenged opinions about the way the world works are now being judged under the harsh light of reality cast by two burning skyscrapers in New York.
One of the good things to come out of the horrors of that day is that the western world, or at least the dynamic Anglosphere part of it, is undergoing a most astonishing intellectual ‘shake out’. The system is in a state of flux and it is unclear what the zeitgeist is going to feel like when it all starts to settle down again. One thing is for sure, it will be different.
Former prince of the statist ‘left’ Christopher Hitchens is a striking example of this process. Whilst always articulate and insightful, it seems he is also possessed of a critically rational mind capable of simply jettisoning the demonstrably false when the evidence deems that the correct thing to do. One only has to read his devastating carve-up of former fellow travellers like Noam Chomsky to see just how far he has come. In his article in the Guardian called “Ha ha ha to the pacifists” he pours scorn on those who would side with the vilest regimes in the world and claim moral superiority.
Of course people do not like being proved wrong, and they like others pointing out their cock-ups even less. Last night I was listening to pundit-lite Michael Brunson on the TV reviewing the early editions of the British newspapers. At one point he became almost apoplectic with a double page spread in the print version of The Sun (a low-brow tabloid) titled ‘Shame of the Traitors’. This article quotes the Guardian, New Statesman, the Independent, the Mirror, members of Parliament, members of the European ‘Parliament’ and sundry others. All made dire predictions about the war, questioned the morality of it and scorned its progress.
So was Michael Brunson angry that the pundits had got it so wrong? Hell no! He was outraged that a lowly tabloid like The Sun had questioned the motivation of people making clearly ridiculous unsupported claims to the point they could be described as giving ‘aid and comfort to the enemy’. He said “I fail to see the point of this whole article” and “Why should they criticize people for saying that they believe?”.
To give you some idea of what the people whose ‘honour’ Michael Brunson was defending were actually writing:
“Opposition leaders about to quit battle against Taliban. US blunders leave key fighters disillusioned. Key Afghan opposition commanders are on the verge of abandoning the fight against the Taliban because their confidence in US military strategy has collapsed. Insurgents are no longer willing to infiltrate eastern Taliban-controlled Afghanistan because they believe American blunders are destroying the opportunity to spread revolt against the Islamist regime.”
Rory Carroll, the Guardian, November 9: the day Mazar-i-Sharif fell to the Northern Alliance! This ‘news’ is either Taliban propaganda, astonishingly bad reporting or simply made up to suit Rory Carroll’s anti-Americanism. Take your pick.
“If the Northern Alliance does take Kabul on, the battle is likely to be very bloody. The recent successes of the Northern Alliance are unsurprising but it will take more than carpet bombing to win southern Afghanistan.”
Richard Norton-Taylor, the Guardian, November 13: The recent successes are… unsurprising? I guess Norton-Taylor was not reading the Guardian on November 9 beacuse if he had, he should have been utterly astonished that the Northern Alliance was winning! Moreover in reality Kabul fell with a whimper, not a roar.
“The message we want to get out is simple – stop the bombing…Recognize that bombing pleases one person above all others – Osama bin Laden.”
Tam Dalyell, Labour Member of Parliament, November 1: so if the Taliban and Al Qaeda were asked “would you like the bombing to continue or stop?”… presumably Tam Dayell would have us believe that they would say “Continue, we would like some more of that invigorating bombing please”.
Judging from Michael Brunson’s remarks, it seems that being correct is not a very important part of a pundit’s job. However what is really important is not to point out the stupidity of other pundits or, even worse, that a great chunk of what they said was proved by events to be completely incorrect. That simply is not cricket!
And higher up the established media food chain, no wonder they really hate people like Christopher Hitchens, as he cannot be dismissed as a mere hack for some boorish English tabloid… not only is he making the doves of the ‘left’ and ostriches of the ‘right’ look extremely bad, he is an apostate who has been attacking Sauron Chomsky himself. Hitchens is actually calling himself a libertarian these days. As Bob Dylan sang: Oh the times, they are a’ changin’
Never blame malice for what can be adequately blamed on stupidity
-R. Feynman
(a number of articles from various issues of the JPM Daily Tech)
Europeans adopt first cyber-crime treaty
The 43-nation Council of Europe adopted a non-binding treaty on cyber-crime, Reuters reported yesterday. It is the first international treaty on criminal offenses committed over the Internet. The treaty criminalizes activities, such as fraud and child pornography committed on the Web. It also sets up global policing procedures for conducting computer searches, intercepting e-mails, and extraditing criminal suspects. The treaty has to be ratified by individual states and its provisions incorporated into national law.
Score one for the good guys…
On the flip side, for the US readers this implies that Uncle Sam can dip into your cookie jar anytime he wants something to snack on, that pesky Fourth Amendment not withstanding.
Europe moves to protect data privacy, votes to ban cookies
The European Parliament snubbed a request by President Bush to allow authorities more access to Europeans’ private data, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Voting on a bill governing communications privacy issues, the Parliament overwhelmingly supported the European Union’s status quo, which bans the routine collection of data such as telephone and Internet-activity logs for any purpose other than billing. It also voted to ban Web-site operators from placing files on people’s computers without permission and commercial operators in general from sending unsolicited faxes and mobile-phone messages. It stopped short of banning spam.
This one could probably be subtitled as “I’m gonna break your metal face” is simply an expression of liberty and equality.
BattleBots see women and men competing equally in engineering
BattleBots are robots that attempt to destroy each other in tournaments. In BattleBots, women are full participants in designing, building, operating, and repairing the aggressive hunks of metal, Wired News reported yesterday. In the U.S. BattleBot tournaments are broadcast on Comedy Central.
At the latest BattleBot tournament, the first all-women’s collegiate team from the University of Tulsa competed in the superheavyweight division with their spinner bot, Hurricane. The Tulsa team, made up of about 15 engineering students, designed Hurricane in January and put it together over the summer. The Tulsa team plans to tour local schools with Hurricane to encourage kids to pursue math and science.
JPM DailyTech Editor’s comment: Unlike boxing or other sports where the sexes are divided, in BattleBots women and men compete against each other directly. At least, their robots do. BattleBots can weigh up to 350 pounds. No individual is picking one up, so brawn isn’t an asset. Women still are a distinct minority in these tournaments, but at least the playing field in this sport is level.
BattleBot tournaments are set in a fight format, but they are really challenges of engineering design and manufacturing skill. They are similar to stock car races, which are a test of engineering, but also a test of driver skill, physical strength, and stamina. In BattleBot competitions, which last only a few minutes, the driver’s outside the ring controlling the vehicle through a remote control device. No crash helmets needed.
And now, three for the drooling techno-philes in the audience (and you know who you are…) to whom the words “More! More! Faster! Faster!” mean something entirely different.
Intel funnels PC advances into motherboard
Intel displayed its next generation motherboard, code named Hannacroix, at this week’s Comdex show, CNET News reported yesterday. It’s a vehicle to demonstrate many technologies Intel hopes to see in future PCs, including the faster version two of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) connections, Serial ATA connections to hard drives, six-speaker audio, and 802.11b and Bluetooth wireless networking.
With Hannacroix, Intel decided to support both USB 2.0 and Firewire, two dueling standards for connecting devices such as digital cameras, MP3 players, network cards, and hard disks. USB 2.0 is much faster than the current version of USB, which is best for devices with low data-transfer demands, such as mice or keyboards. Microsoft initially snubbed USB 2.0 in Windows XP but later announced support.
JPM Tech Daily Editor’s comment: The new motherboard design is all about speed and connectivity. Addressing performance bottlenecks will help move the PC upscale into server and mainframe markets. Intel isn’t sure whether USB or Firewire will dominate external connections, so it’s supporting both standards. It’s not sure whether 802.11b or Bluetooth will become the wireless communication standard, so it’s supporting both.
Inside the computer, Intel is addressing another major communications bottleneck, the hard drive. Although processors, hard drives, and other components have increased in speed and performance, the conduits that connect these parts have not. This has resulted in the equivalent of traffic jams inside computers. Serial ATA will effectively double the bandwidth between disk drives and other PC components. It will also allow drives to communicate independently with the CPU. Most visibly, Serial ATA will get rid of the wide ribbon cables, an artifact of the original PC designs, which now impede airflow inside a computer.
IBM to build second Blue Gene supercomputer
IBM will build a supercomputer that is smaller and 15 times speedier than the current fastest computer, Reuters reported today. The new computer will be used for everything from weather modeling, to studying genomics data, and running commercial database applications. It is the second computer planned as part of an expanding five-year, $100 million project called Blue Gene that IBM began in 1999 with the intention of studying proteins. Blue Gene/L is expected to be completed in 2004, and will have a processing speed of 200 teraflops, or 200 trillion calculations per second.
Nanowires may help detect pathogens
Scientists have created transistors out of tiny crystal nanowires less than a millionth of an inch wide and several thousandths of an inch long, The New York Times reported today. Dr. Charles M. Lieber, who led the Harvard chemistry team that built the nanowires said that they might make good sensors for proteins, DNA, and other biological molecules. Among other things, that could aid the development of devices to detect pathogens like anthrax, he said.
or Fred Bastiat gets all warm, loving and huggy with Natalie…
Arbitrage itself is not a zero sum game as the buying/selling of both sides of the arbitrage adds liquidity to the market, which adds value to the market itself by making trades easier for all participants and reducing volatility.
As for ‘arbitraging’ sovereign services, anything which reduces the distortions of the state by reducing the power of the state to do, well, much of anything, is hardly a ‘zero-sum-game’. Allowing the market to actually work better adds value that would otherwise be lost to the state. Government by its nature destroys wealth by using force to allocate resources, thus removing the ability of those resources to flow where they otherwise would have been employed with profit.
Frederic Bastiat wrote in 1850 about ‘that which is seen, and that which is not seen’, in which he explains how we can see how the state allocates resources which it has appropriated and we can see how it results in supposed productive activity. But what we do not see is what those resources would have done if allocated by the market if the state had not appropriated them. If the resources could have be used to create what the government wants at a profit, then why have the government do it at all? If the resources could not have been employed to create it at a profit, then clearly the actions of the government result in wealth destruction.
So I would contend anything people can do to keep the means of production out of the hands of the state, far from producing a zero sum game, actually adds to the total sum of wealth by allowing those means to engage in genuine wealth creation.
Capitalism, when warm, loving and huggy… or cold, bad tempered and grumpy, is a splendid thing because it creates wealth whilst not actually giving a damn. It is rather like the way the wind can move a sail ship forward if the ship is sailed correctly or sink it if the ship is sailed poorly. On the other tentacle, government, even when warm, loving and huggy, makes us all poorer, rather like a dreaded in-law who comes to visit and just will not go away again.
As for my glee at the idea of driving the tax men of several nations into a confused state of mental collapse, now that is a metacontext thing. It’s just the way I see the world.
…is not so completely wonderful as all that. As I understand it arbitrage is a zero sum game. As I never tire of pointing out – um, no, as I’m sick and tired of pointing out but keep doing it anyway – the wider world of laissez faire is a win-win game. Warm. Loving. Huggy. Capitalism. It’s a metacontext thing, Perry, like in your opening essay.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
-William Pitt (1783)
Sadly we don’t hear British prime ministers echoing those sentiments these days
… it can also lead to an interesting world view.
Arbitrage is an artful way to make money. When two (or more) items have a historical range of price relationship between them, temporary changes in these relationships provide an opportunity for profit. Often the relationships between the two different products is obscure, very indirect and sometimes quite counterintuitive. Yet many an arbitrageur (or just ‘arb’ as they are often known) has grown slowly and unflamboyantly wealthy, not in the high drama the great bull or bear markets, but just by watching relative price movements in products as diverse and seemingly unrelated as soybean oil and pork belly futures.
The same approach can be taken in other areas of endeavour too.
Globalization has brought many interesting and exciting things in its wake, not to mention hitherto unprecedented prosperity to more people on the planet than ever before. Capital is now almost totally fungible at the push of a button and this has had the effect of creating an interesting market. The sovereign law market.
I wrote about the most glaring example of this yesterday. States like to pass laws that say what their subject populations can and cannot say, write or publish. Yet now, people who wish to publish views that their local laws say are illegal have merely to host them on a server in some other country and viola! The ‘illegal’ views are on display for anyone who wishes to read them and there is not a damn thing the state can do about it. Information too is now fungible: if you can’t publish a dead tree pamphlet, a website will do just fine.
Which brings us again to laws. It use to matter very little in a nation what the laws were in some other country. But in this era of downloadable virtualized products, excellent communications, cosmopolitan entrepreneurship, ubiquitous spoken English and mobile capital, there is increasingly little reason why a business should be set up in a place which chooses to slather on tax and regulatory burdens. We are entering an era of the arbitrage of laws. Are the employment laws better in the Philippines or India? India eh? Ok, lets relocate our call centre from Los Angeles to India. What about corporate taxes? Ok, move the company’s brass plate to the British Virgin Islands. Where are the best programmers? Prague? Ok, lets outsource to a Czech codehaus…they even have the best beer there. Where will our data be safe? USA? Ok, I know a nice server farm in Fresno…yes, they have their own power generators…etc.
Rather than ‘investing’ a business in a single ‘national’ economy, the sovereign law arbitrageur modularizes and virtualizes and invests wherever their particular needs are best met by the state for that aspect of their business. No longer does he have to take a one-size fits all/one nation fits all approach. Analogous to arbitrage, this approach does not yield the big bucks won or lost by hitching one’s fortunes to a single state…yet by simply opting out of unreasonable laws by moving modularized companies to where they are best looked after (i.e. left the hell alone), capital is allowed to work more effectively.
The future is dispersed, virtual, anational and the bits send each other e-mail in English…even when one bit is in Calcutta and the other in Prague and they are talking about a client in New York. Of course an added bonus is driving the theft enforcement arm of several states utterly crazy trying to figure out not just how to tax you but just who the hell ‘you’ actually are!
The future is closer than you might think.
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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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