From: Greg Burch (gregburch@gregburch.net)
Date: Thu Nov 07 2002 - 08:52:18 MST
I've only been able to read a very few posts here recently, having to
delete many without any attention at all. I may have a little more time
for a few days, so I picked one from the by-now huge "socialism" thread
almost at random and saw this:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alexander Sheppard
> Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 8:47 AM
>
> If someone takes all the food away, for example, you
> die--that's essentially equivilant to murder if the person is
> deliberately
> depriving you of food by force. So, essentially the
> capitalist system is
> based on threats and punishment by the powerful, who control
> the resources
> that others need to live by force. The powerful threaten the
> weak with
> forced deprivation of resources, and the weak, fearing for
> their lives,
> enter into slavery for the masters.
I know we get expressions of fatigue at having to explain basic things
to "newbies" from time to time, and reading things like this certainly
makes me understand that sentiment. This is so deeply wrong that it's
hard to know how to even begin to explain things to someone who could
write such a thing. To go from "depriving someone of food by force is
murder" to "the capitalist system is based on threats and punishment"
reveals such a profound misunderstanding of basic economic and political
reality, that I wonder whether it's possible to carry on any kind of
useful discussion until the participants reach a certain level of
knowledge and comprehension of how the world works.
Alexander, I don't mean to be insulting, but there are matters of shared
knowledge and values that underlie the extropian principles. I honestly
don't know how you could have that knowledge and subscribe to those
values and still express such things. Basic values of liberty and
exchange among free individuals lie at the heart of the extropian
principles.
Greg Burch
Vice-President, Extropy Institute
http://www.gregburch.net
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