[extropy-chat] Extropy and libertarianism

[Mike Lorrey]

--- paul illich <paul_illich at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> "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.

What universe is this Decenter guy operating in? Firstly, the
association with Hitler clearly ignores the fact that Hitler was a
socialist fascist and we are individualist (this sort of smear is
EXACTLY the sort of thing I warn of when I warn against ExI
encompassing collectivist memes, as Nazi's racial supremacy theories
are quite clearly a collectivist ideal, not an individualist one). His
smear of Rand is similarly ignorant. She was hardly a fascist, clearly
anti-fascist (fascism of all stripes, including left and right), but
that he labels it such is indicative of his bias.

> 
> "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! 

Note the 'free' in quotes, as if to express doubt that the free market
is free or evinces freedom.

> I suspect the Extropians themselves are
> merely slightly more sophisticated versions of the ignorant
> propagand-fed red-neck hick that the interviewees brother is.

Is calling him a left propaganda-fed yellow bellied city slicker
cocktail liberal any more or less bigoted, ignorant, or narrow minded?

> 
> "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)

Because they aren't, as anyone who has actually studied economics can
tell you. Why is it that the quiche eating elitist leftists so sure of
the truth of their socialist beliefs have rarely, if ever, taken an
economics course that wasn't taught by an avowed marxist?

> 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)?

Soon enough, when? Haven't seen one yet. Of course the cloyingly
cynical always call any belief a cult.

> 
> "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.

Ah, a recovering theist is what we have here, whose saccharine
simplistic altar boy religious ideas were let down by reality and is
put out that god would be so cruel as to disappoint him. Sounds like
the boy never got over his oedipal complex.

> 
> "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. 

Rather, the incompetent and powerless are made incompetent and
powerless by a socialist/collectivist state in its intended course of
disempowering the individual in favor of the collective.

> 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. 

Or rather, that they are alienated by a future denied and opportunity
stripped by a system intent on making them cogs in a social machine.

> 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.

Particularly they are denied access to the tools of contributing to the
community consensus through barriers to entry into the electoral
system, vote fraud, and manipulation of media by powers that be to
smear those who overcome the barriers with various labels of reverse
bigotry.

> "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. 

The assumption that confluence of identity creates alliance or
confluence of interest is not supported by facts.

> 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).

In a typically leftist confusion of the facts and seeing black as
white, the individualists goal of avoiding force majeure used against
one is taken by the leftist collectivist as the use of force majeure
against everyone else.

> 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.

Far be if for me to assert that the self-sure leftist secure in his
leftist deconstructionist dogma may have some unconcious
presuppositions he is unaware of or refusing to question.

> 
> "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.

Which explains why left wing terrorist groups always release a
manifesto, to ensure that the world understands why they feel they were
pushed to use violence against society, because even though the left
has a greater record of engaging in infantile and incompetent violence,
it never ceases to come up with new excuses for why its past actions
were justified, or denials that those who took them were actually
leftists (since it is tautologically obvious that someone who engages
in violence was not sufficiently 'sophisticated' enough to be a
leftist).

The fact is that some bad actors do not need to have their sins
explained to them, some people and ideas are just evil, and if they
will not give them up, well, there's no point trying. Its not my job to
give then a chance at redemption or make them understand why I, or any
other individualist, does what they do or resists their collectivism.
Someone so wedded to their collectivist philosophy as to refuse to ever
give it up is a waste of breath.

> 
> "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?"

The idea that leftist socialism/collectivism has a monopoly on any kind
of truth about what is 'hyper-rational' is as poorly supported as the
idea that the right has any monopoly on what god wants.




Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
Founder, Constitution Park Foundation:
http://constitutionpark.blogspot.com
Personal/political blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com

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