[ExI] Call To Libertarians

[Keith Henson]

As Fred mentioned a while back, upper and lower case libertarians are
different and there is an entire thicket of ideas that go under that
general heading.

The big influences in that area are Ayn Rand and Robert A. Heinlein.

To give the younger members a sense of how far back this goes, here is
a snip from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, 1966 (serial version in
1965).  This is a discussion among three of the main characters before
they start the revolution to free Luna (the 4th character is Mike, an
awakened AI.)

(Whoh)  "But  Professor, what are your political beliefs?"

(Professor de la Paz) "I'm a rational anarchist."

(Whoh) " I don't know that brand.  Anarchist individualist, anarchist
Communist, Christian anarchist, philosophical anarchist, syndicalist,
libertarian  those I know. What what's this? Randite?"

(Professor de la Paz)   "I can get along with a Randite. A rational
anarchist believes that concepts such as 'state' and 'society' and
'government' have no existence save as physically exemplified in the
acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is
impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame...as blame,
guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings
singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all
individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an
imperfect world...aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet
undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure."

(Mannie)  "Hear, hear!" I said. "'Less than perfect.' What I've been
aiming for all my life."

"You've achieved it," said Wyoh. "Professor, your words sound good but
there is something slippery about them. Too much power in the hands of
individuals -- surely you would not want...well, H-missiles for
example – to be controlled by one irresponsible person?"

(Professor de la Paz)  "My point is that one person is responsible.
Always. If H-bombs exist -- and they do -- some man controls them. In
tern of morals there is no such thing as 'state.' Just men.
Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts."

Page 84

I didn't put this up to display the thinking ascribed to a Heinlein
character, but to show that there is a lot of variety in those who
describe themselves as "libertarian".

And I should note that while I have formerly described myself as
(lower case) libertarian, my thinking has been oriented toward
understanding people and societies through the lens of evolutionary
psychology.  So far a political movement has not been built around
this view of humans.

Keith

PS  This is part of the cultural background needed to understand early
extropian discussions.  I doubt there was a person on that list who
had not read most of Heinlein's works as well as essential books such
as Drexler's Engines of Creation.