[extropy-chat] Extropy and libertarianism

[paul illich]

I posted on this at the bluegreenearth yahoogroup (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bluegreenearth/)
and received the reply posted a coupla para below, which is quirky to say the least. I googled the
SF Eye mag and the issue Tim comments on was described thus - 

"Charles Platt took a hard look at the Extropians; John Shirley turned in an essay assessing
violence from the point of view of one who had spent his career writing about it; Don Webb wrote
about the mysterious in fiction; Gary Westfahl a refreshing essay about teaching SF; Ken Jopp a
controversial piece concerning the positive aspects of arrested infantilism and human future; and
Steve Kelner contributed a fascinating look at the mind/brain dichotomy both in reality and as
portrayed in SF." 

Actually sounds interesting, but I couldn't find the text online. I believe the Jopp parts might
be about this guy - http://www.starlarvae.org/




Paul

From: "tim_decenter" <tim_decenter at ...> 
Date: Sat Sep 10, 2005
Subject: Re: fwd: Extropy and libertarianism

I feel obliged to respond to this one. I can see the
glamour of extropy and the attraction, too, of the
rugged individualism of American libertarianism. But
I have serious reservations as well.

As a kid I read much SF, so the idea of a futuristic
new breed of man is interesting to me. I studied history
and philosophy too, and so I distrust such ideas as well.

I have commented before on the differences between
European social-anarchist positions and American
individualist positions. I won't belabour the point
again.

However, I think that what is positive in my idea of
what libertarian should be (and that includes things
that are nominally 'opposed' to _absolute_ libertarianism,
such as community), is endangered by extropianism.

Way back in the early 90's I regularly read the magazine
Science Fiction Eye. They ran some extropian material, and
I wrote in a response which they printed (I think it was
'93?). Much of it relates to exactly this point, so I
am copying in that letter below (the original, which I
have a print copy of, not the slightly edited one from
the mag, which I can't lay my hands on right now):

"Ken Jopp, in his article Cyberfetus Rising (Eye #13), puts forward a
scenario for future human development. My own perception of where
we're at has some basic similarities with Jopp's. We both see space
migration as a likely necessity [2005 comment - 'errm?!']. We are
both inclined to perceive 'tools as extensions of man'. And we both
conceive electronic media as creating a new environment within which
the species may evolve in unique and unprecedented ways.

"Yet where I see the possibility of an ethically and ecologically
balanced, holistic unification of man of the sort that Marshall
McLuhan, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, or Murray Bookchin might
envisage, Jopp predicts a devolution of the species, though he seems
to believe it to be the opposite. The development of a biotechnology
that not only emphasises the female, but empowers women to replicate
withiout the maleof the species at all, implies a technology-
dependent society. Our proposed evolution into amorphous and
cancerous blobs, our skeletons replaced with prosthetics and our only
viable environment a somewhat specialised gravity-less techno-space-
yacht also implies our future dependency (a more elegant vesion was
to be found in Bruce Sterling's Shaper-Mechanist tales).

"While modern man may be a tad unable to easily survive in the wilds,
we have evolved as generalists, not as specialists. This has allowed
us to evolve in ways fundamentally different to the rest of the
creatures that we share the biosphere called Earth with. Our ability
to adapt is a function of this evolution. This evolved ability to
adapt to many environments is seen, apparently, by Jopp as
unnecessary. He simply flushes it down the septic tank of history.
After all, his Techneotenous man could surely not survive without his
hyper-technic environment.

"The concern Jopp has that the only alternative to escape to space is
a global National Security Agency (since that is what America is
becoming) is incredibly short-sighted. As Andre Gorz would no doubt
say, if your organisational construct is inherently hierarchical and
dominatory - as western capitalism undeniably is - then efforts to
channel energies more ecologically (or more extra-planetarily) are
doomed to the same ultimate self-destruction. The ida that a society
that forces a balance with the environment, but that is itself not
ecologially balanced internally, can resolve our conflicts, whether
on or off planet, is misguided. If we cannot change our method of
organisation towards non-hierarchical, participatory democracy (any
who says we are already _any_ kind of democracy is blind) across the
globe, then we are doomed wherever we are.

"Saying that 'unfortunately, we may have to wait until eight million
people clamouriong for VCRs and Hondas prove the Earth is inadequate
for human needs before the institutions with the resources to
initiate space colonisation do so', shows tow major flaws of
perception. One is the equation of VCRs and Hindas with
human 'needs' - we need to recalibrate our global demands, not
continue to regard luxuries as necessities. The second is the
implication that we will _have_ the resources to do anything at all,
leat of all colonise outer space, if wwe wait for the collapse that
wil occcur through resource-depletion before we act.

"Jopp then asks what his insane scenario might mean for the future
evolution of human consciousness, but leaves the answer 'to the
mystics'.

"Well, I am no mystic. But I have a sort of answer for him. If he is
igh about the direction of our evolution, then it will be seen that,
to paraphrase Jopp himself, with the invention of the frying pan we
embarked upon a path that leads eventually to the fire.

"This article follows an equally insane piece on 'Extropy'. The
ignorance that leads the 'Extropians' to find the ubermensch a
positive ideal (Hitler cannot really be seen as a perversion of the
concept, more an inevitiable consequence - see Wagner, Neitzsche,
Spengler), and that lords neo-fascists like Ayn Rand (Abnal Gland is
more appropriate), is quite frightening.

"The Extropian viewpoint is best illustrated by glancing at it
sideways. This is simply done, since the necessary tools are
furnished by one Extropians view of his own family's response to his
beliefs. He gleefully describes socialism as being 'just about the
opposite' of the Extropian view, which is why he is at loggerheads
with one of his brothers. His other brother is more able to acceopt
the Extropian ideas - why? Well, happily oblivious (or, God help us,
aware) of what it says about his own beliefs, our tame Extropian
tells us that the brother who is able to sympathise is a
fundamentalist christian, loves the 'free' market, like anarcho-
capitalism, and loves guns! I suspect the Extropians themselves are
merely slightly more sophisticated versions of the ignorant propagand-
fed red-neck hick that the interviewees brother is.

"Both these articles smack a little too much of right-wing
libertarianism (why can't these people understand that capitalist
economics and the liberty of men are irreconcilable), and I wonder
why a magazine that has done so much in the past to fight unreason -
see the attacks of [Orson Scott] Card, and, most especially, on
Scientology - is so willing to give space to people that will soon
enough be setting up their own cultish little religion, persecuting
those who disagree with them (mark my words)?

"Even the ever-reliable John Shirley seems to be slowly evolving into
a religious type. Unable to accept a sadistic God, he embraces
instead a massively fallible one. The God he envisages seems an
unnecessary addiction to our universe - surely the only God that we
should bother to fear, or follow, is an omnipotemt one? Thus you do
not choose between two types of God, but look at our history to see
that (if you accept an omnipotent deity as the only likely /
necessary kind) either God _is_ a sadist, or God has no meaningful
existence in the world.

"I think Shirley is too hard on himself in limiting his options to,
i) '...I sold out, in the new climate of doubt about violent media',
or ii) '...I developed a conscience about the violence in the imagery
I create for the public's entertainment'.

"The clue to a third option, and one I feel may be more rational, is
given to the reader when Shirley quotes Enerson and Asimov; 'Emerson
said that violent men are actually demonstrationg thier
powerlessness; Isaac Asimov said that violence is the last refuge of
the incompetent.' Here, maturity and empowerment (the incompetent can
be seen as disempowered by their own failings) are the routes out of
violent culture. here I would agree with Jopp about infantilism in TV-
land - children perceive the world without subtlety, where everything
is alien and thier own lack of knowledge and smaller physical scale
fill them with fear and, through the peception that they are
powerless, this leads them to either adopt an attitude of apathy or
to try as hard as possible to find a way to fight back. Since
sophisticated use of passive communication tools requires a high
degree of self- and world- awareness they are only available to
adults, and in our hierarchical and embattled culture even adults are
not properly furnished with the necessary equipment to resolve
conflict peacefully (few break out of tis mainstream of our society).
Chilren, adolescents, and ill-equipped adults see the world in black-
and-white. Violence is the only tool they can see yielding an
immediate imposition of their selfhod upon the world around them.


"To reject this is not a sell-out. Nor is it the development of a
conscience [I was aluding here to the concepts mystical and 'god-
given' overtones - 2005]. It is simply an evolutionary step in an
individual's development - he 'grows out' of the polarising world-
view. In a world where everyone who disagrees with you is the enemy
_everyone_ is the enemy, since none are identical to you as an
individual. Seeing things in black-and-white can only, therefore,
lead to force majeure against everyone around you (this extreme of
teen neurosis/paranoia is, thnakfully, rarely found in the raw).
Learning that the disagreeable views of those around you are sourced
in someone else (TV, books, teachers, fathers...) is the first step
to seeing the world as a subtler place, necessitiating an unequal
apportion of blame. It can also lead you to question some of your own
unconscious presuppositions.

"This process of socialisation (growing up) is not something we do
overnight. It takes many years. And in a culture such as America,
Britain, and, to a lesser extent, continental Europe, many never
really get to fully do it - growing up is actively discouraged (it
depends on your ideology whether you choose to see this as an
unconscious consequence of the system or a more deliberate function
of it). Perhaps all this is happening to Shirley is that he is
maturing, and in doing so seeing the solutions to problems in an
increasingly sophisticated way. If you blow away people who are
effectively brainwashed minions of the real 'bad guys' they fail to
understand why you wish to kill them, and redouble their efforts to
reciprocate - this game plan is, therefore, a non-starter, and as you
mature you may see this as such a fundamental reality that you pull
back from such resolutions even in works of fantasy.

"Please, John, don't break out of one overly subjective mental
universe into another - the perception of developed conscience
invariably leads to a new self-righteousness, and, unfortunately,
often to religion as well.

"I find it disturbing that a magazine like the Eye should seem to be
so consistently evolving away from its previous hyper-rationalist
stance. Has Stephen P. Brown been going through these changes, too?
Are we _all_ doomed to worship at the alter of cyberspace or
deterministic bio-technology?"

All this and the Matrix trilogy a decade away... ;-)

The division of this letter into the extropian half and
the development and maturation of world view half are not
so divided as they may seem a first glance. The latter
informs the critique in the former. If this had been an
article, the riffing off of the excellent SF Eye magazines
previous issue would have had to be stripped out, and if
I had the time right now, I'd tidy the above up and change
a few points. But I guess it stands as an artifact of the
'stream-of-consciousness and a manual typewriter with only
Tippex paper to amand it' era, now long subsumed by the
era of the word processor... erm, actually, the development
of discussion groups like Yahoo!Groups seems to have bypassed
the word-processor as tool for self-censure!

The early references to Bookchin and Gorz would be elaborated
too.

Tim


--- In bluegreenearth at yahoogroups.com, "paul illich"
<paul_illich at h...> wrote:
> From: hal at f... ("Hal Finney")
>
>
> I know this is a controversial topic, and this may be an unwelcome
> contribution, but I suggest that it is reasonable and appropriate
> to look at the Principles of Extropy and consider what they say
about
> various political systems. My reading of the principles of Open
Society
> and Self-Direction is that they point very much towards a
libertarian
> approach to political life.
>
> What is it that distinguishes libertarianism from other political
systems?
> As I use the term, I see it as that political system which
minimizes the
> use of coercion and compulsion and allows individuals the maximum
freedom
> to make their own decisions about their lives. In a libertarian
society,
> people are free to make mutual volutary agreements about social and
> economic matters. For example, there is no minimum wage, because
that
> prevents people from agreeing to work for less than a centrally-
defined
> pay rate. People are not taxed to pay for social insurance or
welfare
> systems, because again that interferes with people's freedom to make
> mutual agreements as they see fit.


	
		
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