Michael Lorrey wrote:
>
I say, that's a bit of an exaggeration, what? To caricature the American view,
>
> Nah, we've just gotten a lot more subscribers from Europe, New Zealand and
> Australia. Consequently, the number of people with socialist leanings has
> gone up. They seem to have this quirky notion that you can make everything
> equal for everyone without stealing anything from anybody, or annoying anyone
>
Those with more of a sense of history might think much of what you posses is a gift from the Past, (e.g. language, culture, technology), and feel moved to continue that trade into the future. I don't see any conflict in this with the Extropian Principles as posted by Max.
Since I believe in maximizing freedom of the individual, I wouldn't want to force trading between the past and the future on others. I'm hopeful than self-replicating systems and the like will enable total individualists to go their own way, and various forms of collective association association to flourish. For me, the negative in Socialism is the coercion of those who don't desire to redistribute any of their wealth, not the desire to take part in a "gift culture" as well as a money market one.
Bernard J Hughes bernard@timedancer.com Timedancer Systems http://www.timedancer.com