From: Russell Blackford (RussellBlackford@bigpond.com)
Date: Sat Aug 25 2001 - 18:08:10 MDT
Brian Phillips said to Miriam
>Yeesh. I think your comment dragged down the average level
>of discourse on the list a few percentage points. I don't spend
>valuable time reading Extropian for the liberal schmaltz after all.
Well, what do you read it for? I think that Miriam's "liberal schmaltz: is
just as legitimate as all the other political discussion that goes on here.
Speaking for myself, I read the list in the hope of obtaining clues and
making contacts in one of my personal projects, which consists of contesting
neo-Luddite ideas, developing an intellectual defence of transhumanism, and
arguing in public for the transhumanist cause. Most of what I read is just
noise from that viewpoint. However, it's pleasant chatting about all kinds
of things with a group of people who are broadly sympathetic to the above
aims. I don't expect them all to agree with my political views and I don't
get angry or impatient when I encounter disagreement. Indeed, there are
people on this list with very different political views from mine whom I'd
now like to think of as friends. Eg, take a bow, Lee and Reason.
But I *am* getting impatient with the use of the word "liberal" (in the
sense of social democrat/ic) as one of abuse. The way this is done, day in
day out, suggests that some people here believe that liberal ideas in that
sense are somehow contrary to extropianism or to transhumanism or to the
list's traditions and are illegitimate on this list.
*Is* that the feeling? Are any of you prepared to come right out and say
that people with Olga's political views, or Miriam's, or Damien's, or even
mine, are just not welcome here? Should we simply form our own transhumanist
list and avoid a lot of grief?
Grumpily
Russell
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