From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Date: Fri Mar 13 1998 - 13:07:01 MST
Erik Moeller wrote:
> ><ANTIRANT>My Libertarian views are not reactionary, at least not now,
> >considering that the status quo is a welfare liberal statist establishment.
> They
> >are hardly conservative. Approving of abortion? Approving of suicide and
> >assisted suicide? Approving of personal drug freedom? Approving of personal
> >choice in pornography, cryptography, etc.? Oh, I'm just a freaking nazi, I
> am.
>
> Well, the nazis approved something *they* called assisted suicide. It was
> called Euthanasia.
and it was hardly voluntary. I would hardly call the way your socialist buddies
in china harvest organs from prisoners as 'assisted suicide' either.
> There are different conservative groups. One is the religous-right,
> Republican group. You're hardly part of that group. But there's also a group
> of technology freaks that argue based on ideas that were refuted a long time
> ago. I call this conservative. You call it Extropy.
You should look at the political arena as more of an x/y coordinate system,
rather than just a right left spectrum. One axis represents relative social
freedom, and the other represents relative economic freedom. While American
conservatives occupy the high economic,low social freedom corner, and nazis and
communists occupy the low economic, low social freedom corner, libertarians
occupy the high, high corner, while the international anarchists typically are
in the high social, low economic corner.
Categorizing me in with religiouys conservatives is as insulting as puttin an
anarchist in with Stalin. Please be more discrete in your definitions.
> >Not a bad analogy, but possibly more renaissance, depending on what
> >characteristics of the middle ages you are referring to. If you are talking
> >about free enterprise, low tax, self reliant, spirit of exploration and
> >adventure, then I wont argue.
>
> Spirit of exploration and adventure. ROTFL. A good way to describe the
> crusades in an advertising of the vatican.
A good way to describe the age of exploration, or of the Viking era. My own
family lived in Nova Scotia prior to Jamestown and the Mayflower, at least part
of the year.
> >To a transhuman, the sum of the self extends beyond the mere flesh body.
> Energy
> >and Material tools and resources are merely extensions of the self. As
> property
> >defines ones resources, property defines the self of a transhuman.
> Technology
> >was developed in order to more easily expand the size and utility of ones
> >property.
>
> I don't disagree with this. I disagree, however, with the assumption that
> gun ownership and protection of non-transhuman property with deadly force is
> even worth discussing. I also disagree that natural selection applies to
> cultural evolution.
I disagree, as the idea that the state has the right to use deadly force in
redistributing my property which they confiscate from me without due process or
proper Constitutional authority is not even worth discussing.
And what is "non-transhumanist property" anyways? Just what you define it as, or
the state? Property is property. Whether it is "non-transhumanist" or not is
merely due to whether it is in the hands of a transhumanist or not. Nobody else
has the authority to decide otherwise.
Really, funny, the native Americans might have something to say about the idea
that natural selection doesn't apply to cultural evolution, especially the dead
ones. So might the Nazis, the Communists, and today, the French, as their
uncompetetive little culture is getting overrun by Americanization (as most
other undynamic cultures are today). As tacky as you might think it is, the
current American Culture seems to presently be the most competetive culture in
current existence (Or North American culture, as a Canadian would say ;)). Of
course that could change, and if it does, we could all be eating tofu.....
> >Sure, which is why I enjoy playing with my new rifle, or my new fly rod, up
> at
> >the family cabin in the North Country, driving my red Jeep Cherokee 4.0
> liter
> >4x4 to get there, or just staying in town for the weekend and shooting a
> few
> >rounds of skeet, or going skiing. When I'm home, I like to play on my PC
> >equipped with an Intel P II 233 with 64MRAM, 4.8G of hard drive space, 6x
> CD rom
> >and 2x/4x CD writer, 4800dpi 24 bit color flatbed scanner, HP color
> printer, or
> >with my Casio digital camera. I can't decide, though, what to buy this
> summer
> >though, either an ultralight plane, or a share in an oil well in
> Louisiana....
> >decisions, decisions, decision.....
>
> All play and no work make Mike a spoiled brat :-). By playing, I don't mean
> this kind of entertainment (I won't even comment on your rifle mania). I am
> talking about playing with ideas, concepts, perception. You can do this with
> an Apple II. Or even with a pencil and a sheet of paper. Your Pentium II is
> not yet connected to your brain. Using your own brain is therefore more
> effective than using this "extension".
Depends. Check out my new art exhibit when it comes out.....
> >> This
> >> planet could live much better with such 'forward thinkers'.
>
> >Why thank you very much.
>
> You're welcome. You know my position on the economic problems of today's
> society.
And as off base as I think you are, you're still a nice guy.
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