Re: Huh?!

Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Mon, 07 Jul 1997 21:02:40 -0400


Eugene Leitl wrote:
>
> Huh?!
>
> From:
> http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/6308/index.html
>

yeah, I just had a minor discussion with him, and here is his reply
denouncing extropy...

> > From: Michael Lorrey <retroman@tpk.net>
> > Subject: your page
> > Date: Sunday, July 06, 1997 11:50 AM
> >
> > Hi Ian, I just browsed through your page and it looks pretty good.
> >
> > WHile I can understand why you hate the level of extremism some
> > subscribers to the extropian mail list, I must beg to differ about your
> > impression of orthodoxy among extropians and libertarians in general.
> >
> > I do hope that your vision of an anarchic society includes the
> > possibility that some may wish to live under capitalistic systems, while
> > others may want to live in communal socialisms (though looking at
> > today's world, I don't see that as likely, myself), and that all have
> > the freedom to choose their own mode of living and interacting.
>
> "Capitalism is bogus anarchy", to quote a book title. Visit
> http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/
> An Anarchist FAQ, for more information.
>
> Here's an excerpt from http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/secF6.html,
>
> <As Bob Black writes in The Libertarian as Conservative, "To my mind a
> right-wing anarchist is just a minarchist who'd abolish the state to his
> own satisfaction by calling it something else....They don't denounce what
> the state does, they just object to who's doing it.">
>
> Extropians are the same way. You believe we need police and armies to
> defend the property rights of elitist bosses, and to prevent the
> dispossessed from getting their basic needs met in this capitalist
> tyranny.
>
>
> > If that is how you feel, I really don't see how you can be so viciously
> > spiteful against extropians and libertarians, as they typically have a
> > live and let live attitude, even though they typcially beleive that a
> > free market is a truly an anarchical one, and cannot understand how
> > enforced economic egalatarianism can be percieved as anarchy.
>
> You guys don't have a live-and-let-live attitude. Check out Section F
> in the above: <Is "anarcho"-capitalism against the state?> The answer
> is no. It simply favors the creation of a "private state", of the rich,
> by the rich, for the rich. Surely you cannot be so naive as to think
> capitalism allows free experimentation. Ha! Anyone doing that will be
> attacked by the "libertarian" private state just like at Waco and
> Ruby Ridge with the public state. True anarchists are not "anti-state",
> except as a specific case of being anti-authority, anti-power, anti-
> hierarchy. True anarchism has always denounced capitalism as a privilege
> system for the few, to protect them from the many and keep exploiting
> wage- and salary-slaves in de facto debt bondage (e.g. mortgages, car
> payments, rent, etc.).
>
>
> > BTW, I caught your use of the term "Pro Free Lunch". Personally, I find
> > this to be another example of counter reality thinking. The advantages
> > of free market economics is that it behaves as a natural system, and
> > obeys the laws of thermodynamics, which denies the existence of a free
> > lunch.
> > --
> > TANSTAAFL!!!
> > Michael Lorrey
> <snip your sig>
>
> There are no "laws" of thermodynamics. There are only "theories" of
> thermodynamics, just as there are only "theories" of relativity, quantum
> mechanics, gravity, electromagnetism, light, sound, Goedel's incompleteness,
> Heisenberg's uncertainty, etc., etc. A free lunch occurs on the basis of
> an investment in future wealth (e.g. Buckminster Fuller's energy accounting,
> or technocracy inc.'s resource-based PRICELESS economics). Capitalists of
> course don't want this, as it conflicts with their drive for profit at
> another's expense and endless property accumulation. True anarchists
> recognize that the accumulation of property signals the accumulation
> of power, and power corrupts. In order to avoid tyranny and relate to
> each other as equals (with equal rights and access to resources,
> goods and services), we must eliminate the capitalist price-rationing
> scarcity distribution scheme, which has LONG relied on obsolete
> bookkeeping and accounting.
>
> Extropians actually think their views are so new. This would be humorous,
> except that the amount of saps who believe this makes it more serious.
> Let's run down the list.
>
> ACQUISITIVENESS: extropians affirm the right of infinite property
> accumulation (e.g. Bill Gates). No restraints, they say. No state.
> (Anarchists don't mind the state, because it provides some tiny
> measure of democratic control, whereas capitalism exists to serve
> the wealthy elite and honor their entrenched vested interests.)
>
> COLLUSION: most also affirm that corporations should exist and enjoy
> "limited liability" and be treated as a "single person". That this
> defies all common sense and concentrates more power in the hands of
> a few unaccountable agents, ought not need mentioning.
>
> TERRITORIALITY/CLANNISHNESS: extropians advocate creating your own
> utopia of sorts, by only associating with people who share your
> values and pursuits. I.e., deny the existence of starving, sick,
> dying people world-wide, who suffer largely because of our wasteful
> and exploitative (sweat-shop, child labor, debt bondage, wage
> slavery, garbage in/garbage out, etc.) globalist capitalist
> colonialism and expansionism.
>
> SECRECY: extropians affirm cryptography as a means to allow
> unaccountable agents (accountable at most only to each other) to
> continue to squander the resources of this world for their own
> selfish enrichment.
>
> SELFISHNESS: extropians affirm "me-first, me-last, me-only."
> me, me, me. they talk the jive of "personal responsibility", another
> coded way of saying "no such thing as a free lunch", another of
> their pet dogmas which they ascribe as "laws of nature", for of
> course they represent the "voice of nature", or so they think.
>
> etc.
>
> Extropians are nothing new. They're a faction of the libertarian,
> objectivist, "anarcho"-capitalist sham. None of those cults stand
> for freedom or individuality. Just more conformity to money, power,
> violence, and control. Wage-slavery, debt bondage, sweat-shops,
> ridiculous salaries, endless property accumulation, private
> police forces accountable only to the bosses ("privately produced
> law", as libs and extropians call it), a million other tyrannies.
> More oppression. Long live the privileged elite!
>
> Hmmm...what's the problem, you ask?
>
> -Ian Cruikshank
> http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/6308/index.html

-- 
TANSTAAFL!!!
			Michael Lorrey
------------------------------------------------------------
mailto:retroman@tpk.net		Inventor of the Lorrey Drive
Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com
Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com	http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/

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