From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Sun Sep 02 2001 - 10:12:53 MDT
On Sun, Sep 02, 2001 at 11:54:30AM -0400, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> >
> > (Are you going to try and tell me that Ken McLeod is an objectivist? ;-)
>
> Quite. I'd say that the real libertarians are of the
> Heinlein/Niven/Pournelle/L.Neil Smith/Spider Robinson cast of writers.
Not sure about Heinlein -- he died before libertarian ideology in its
current form really gelled, although he was influential upon it. Niven --
hmm, also hard to say. Pournelle: yes. L. Neil Smith: definitely. Spider
Robinson: yes, but less hardcore. Neil Schulman: yes.
Who else?
Neal Stephenson, anybody? (Not overtly ideological in the same
way as L. Neil Smith, but clearly influenced by the silicon valley
zeitgeist.) Jack McDevitt: probably falls in the same "influenced by"
camp as Benford. Wil McCarthy: ditto. (It's an outlook thing rather than
explicit content.) Allen Steele: yes. Walter Jon Williams: in places. And
of course, Charles Sheffield.
The trouble is, SF still tends to revolve around fairly traditional
fictional structures: there's a story and a hero who Does Things and plot
recomplication that achieves resolution. Libertarianism can offer the
lazy author an attractive way out of having to address the complexities
of current-day society by providing a carefully measured ration of
lawlessness. (Fictional heroes in libertopia don't have to deal with the
police and the public prosecutors after the climax of the story because,
of course, bad guys who deserve shooting just get shot. Look ma, no come-
backs.)
> > I suspect it goes back to the seed effect of the extropian principles, Max
> > More's original declaration, and group-think within the original extropian
> > cadre -- who are, to be fair, Americans and largely drawn from (a) hard-SF
> > readers and (b) the technology venture culture of Northern California.
>
> Which is an automatic filter for technically astute males, of course.
Point.
-- Charlie
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:10:20 MST