Re: extropians-digest V7 #306

From: Alexander Sheppard (alexandersheppard@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Nov 08 2002 - 13:05:53 MST


Well, someone has told me that it is confusing if I just randomly cite
passages from random messages and reply to them. This is probably an
accurate criticism, so I'll to do a better job of making it clear who I'm
replying to.

Greg Burch wrote,

"Basic values of liberty and exchange among free individuals lie at the
heart of the extropian principles."

Well, first of all, I don't view exchange as a principle which generally is
compatible with liberty--because exchange between someone who is dying from
hunger and someone who has vast resources in his control thanks to armed
individuals who fight for his control is a joke (in fact, this is basically
the definition of a dictatorship). Vast inequality of resources controlled
leads to tyranny. A rough level of equality, in contrast, leads to liberty,
because nobody has a dominant role. Therefore I am not really an extropian,
although I am a transhumanist. I am an anarchist, but not an
anarcho-capitalist, which I do not view as a legitimate form of anarchism at
all (in fact it is a system which I think generally would be extremely
tyrannical and anti-humanistic).

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