Beautiful J.R., Beautiful. Complete. I could not have said it better
============================================================================JRsays:
Let's try switching the objects of your invective: "You are confusing a
very small minority of loud mouthed radical right wing fascist goons
with equity libertarians that only seek outright equality and respect,
along with freedom and prosperity for all. The only females that
complain are the mindless matriarchal socialists that have an agenda of
getting their flock riled up. It is a black or white thing with these
less than intelligent people.
The radical feminist man-hating fascist goons like the N.O.W.
(Non-Orgasmic Womyn) and their like stereotype libertarians into one
group. They call themselves "feminists"; that is ludicrous and the
typical deceptive logorrhea for the left. The are "Stalinists in Skirts"
people only. They would castrate the entire male population in a second
if they could."
Political rhetoric parses out a lot like tribal insults. "My tribe will
kick your tribe's butt" and "my tribe is better than your tribe" -- that
makes up the message.
For extropy to succeed with Homo sapiens socially, for networks of
cooperation and collaboration to supplant tribal warfare, I think we
need to understand that what makes people use diversity to create
divisiveness, what makes people group themselves into competing
factions, comes from tribal instincts, not from the supposed merits or
faults of any particular social or political program or set of
principles.
People instinctively join (or create via families) tribal groups
(political parties, religious denominations, sports teams, and so on),
because of the strength they gain in numbers. Lone visionaries generally
get beat up, ignored, cast out, or vilified by mobs.
Not that lone visionaries don't sometimes deserve cruel treatment.
Sometimes visionaries take their revenge by starting their own group. I
think libertarianism appeals to extropians because it seeks to limit or
reduce government. I don't see feminism doing that. On the contrary,
feminism seeks to expand government and to control peoples lives even
more. For example, feminists in California and Washington enacted a law
which requires husbands to obtain permission from their wives before
they can get a vasectomy. Not very extropic, that. I don't think
libertarians would enact such a law.
Libertarianism doesn't appeal to tribal instincts as successfully as
feminism does. This, I think, explains why feminism remains more popular
and powerful than libertarianism. To the degree Homo sapiens overcomes
its tribal instincts, I think it drops the whole business of politics.
Without tribal instincts, we'd have no need for libertarianism, and no
patience with feminism. Lone visionaries almost never go berserk. Tribes
almost never avoid going berserk.
Some extropians write about evolving beyond biology. They probably don't
think that by calling themselves extropians, and identifying themselves
tribally, they have already tied themselves to the biology of tribalism.
I think extropic memes will succeed among humans in proportion as they
transcend politics, religiosity, competition, and romance. Otherwise,
they will simply degenerate into just another brand of divisive
rhetoric.