[extropy-chat] Why I am No Longer a Libertarian Either...

[Robert Lindauer]

Al Brooks wrote:

>Oh, sure. The poor have to do what they must to
>survive and try to get ahead. Poverty remains self
>perpetuating 'only' for the near future. Successive
>generations can develop affluence, and those who have
>what it takes can become posthuman. 
>  
>

It's an interesting way of putting the problem.

If our world remains energy-poor, it's unlikely that any but a small 
minority will be able to achieve long-term life.  I daresay they'll have 
to do so at the expense of other worthwhile projects, again, like 
helping the helpless.

You know, I've found people are only helpless until someone helps them.

>What I have doubts about, just for starters, is union
>activity. 
>

Oy vey.  I have doubts about guns.  Look, if you're going to create a 
dung-hole, you're going to get some bacteria swimming around in there.  
This is, perhaps, the essential insight of dialectical materialism - the 
social conditions of humanity shape the humans that are produced in that 
era. 

>Unions in the 20th century helped raise the
>standard of living for laborers; the negative result
>was infiltration by mobsters-- and the other
>consequences.
>  
>

You mean like Las Vegas?  Why is this more of a problem than the 
existence -at all- of the military industrial complex?  As I see it, 
there are gangsters in charge of the country.

Robbie Lindauer

>
>  
>
>>If there were an undefeatable ogre who took as his
>>tax three virgins per 
>>year would the fact that he was undefeatable make
>>you not try to save 
>>the virgins?  If there were 100 strong men in the
>>country shouldn't they 
>>grab their pitchforks?  What about when they come
>>for your daughter?
>>    
>>