From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Date: Sun Apr 20 1997 - 16:04:52 MDT
Phil Goetz wrote:
>
> Steve Witham (sw@tiac.net) wrote:
>
> > Phil Goetz wrote (on Exi-East):
> >
> > >I believe the Extropians, on the whole, seriously lack an appreciation
> > >for the importance of an individual's obligation to the community.
> >
> > Those libertarians among us (probably the ones you're thinking of)
> > have a *very* serious idea of an individual's obligation to the community,
> > and where that obligation ends. I'm obliged to peacefully coexist with
> > others, and that is it, period.
>
> You are speaking from theory. In reality, I don't think anyone has yet
> shown that a society without compulsion can compete with other societies
> in the real world. I am aware that there are some good ideas floating
> around about how to provide for common defense without military
> conscription, create an educated electorate and a healthy
> information-service-based economy without compulsory schooling, provide a
> stable money supply without a government monopoly on coinage, etc. But
> until they have been proven to work, it's silly to get indignant about it.
>
Really, Phil, I would have thought that the SOviet Union collapse while
we were in our biggest bull market would be enough of an exclamation
point to put paid the tired old tyrants claim that compulsion is for
your own good.
Its like the Internal Revenue Code: The code itself says that paying
income taxes is entirely voluntary, what they don't say is that while
you can elect not to pay taxes, businesses cannot employ you, banks
won't hold your funds, etc while you are not paying. If they work with
you, they can lose their government approved licenses to operate as
corporations. This is government's idea of voluntarism: complusory
voluntarism, a nice oxymoronic piece of doublespeak that one would
expect only to see on the pages of Orwell or Huxley.
> Maybe you have a "right" to absolute freedom from the interference of
> others. So what? It's irrelevant if it's impractical. It's childish
> to get upset because you don't have something that you can't have.
> Maybe we can build these Utopias, but only with a complete restructuring
> of our society and culture. Just grabbing at "rights" willy-nilly will
> probably not do it.
>
> And it seems to me you should allow, in your broad formulation of rights,
> that people have the right to build communities as they see fit, including
> ones that use compulsion, as long as they allow people to leave those
> communities. If there are no non-compulsory communities out there for you
> to go to, well, that's too bad, but maybe it's evolution in action.
>
Yes, the existing monopolies of power all recognise each other's
authority to their own territory, and as a group repress attempts to
change this collusion of tyranny. THis will change with cheap space
travel, one of the reasons they don't want it to become available.
--
TANSTAAFL!!!
Michael Lorrey
------------------------------------------------------------
mailto:retroman@tpk.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive
Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com
Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/
Mikey's Animatronic Factory
My Own Nuclear Espionage Agency (MONEA)
MIKEYMAS(tm): The New Internet Holiday
Transhumans of New Hampshire (>HNH)
------------------------------------------------------------
#!/usr/local/bin/perl-0777---export-a-crypto-system-sig-RC4-3-lines-PERL
@k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_
]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256;
&S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}
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