[ExI] book review

[Giulio Prisco]

"The Serengeti Rules" is on my reading list, I hope to read it soon. Must
finish other books first.

Re Marx and Marxism, pasting from my spaceflight book:

...So I decided to become a communist.

I studied communism intensely. I thought I would love a society of equals
where everyone strived selflessly toward common goals, but something told
me that the real world is more complicated than books.

I think healthy societies could be based on different economic and
political systems, including capitalism and communism. In theory. But in
practice, “Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just
the opposite.” My interpretation of this quote (often attributed to John
Kenneth Galbraith) is that many economic and political systems, which could
work in theory, don’t work in practice due to our human nature...

On Tue, Nov 29, 2022 at 11:35 PM Max More via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Presumably, Marx would say that they can't do Marxism without
> totalitarianism because that goes against the historical dialectic. Before
> the state can wither away, you must first go through a stage of the
> "dictatorship of the proletariat".
>
> Of course, Marx made a tiny little error in believing that a dictatorship
> would allow itself to wither away. On the contrary, every state tends to
> stuff itself with other people's money and power and become increasingly
> bloated.
>
> Perhaps I'm just being egotistical, but I'm sure the world would be better
> off by replacing Marxism with Maxism. (If you disagree, I will not have you
> imprisoned or shot.)
>
> --Max
> ------------------------------
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> on behalf
> of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 29, 2022 2:26 PM
> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>;
> extropolis at googlegroups.com <extropolis at googlegroups.com>
> *Cc:* William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> *Subject:* [ExI] book review
>
> 'The Serengeti Rules' - Carroll
>
> This is extraordinary,  practically a course in ecology, told in stories
> of studies and experiments on lakes, African savannahs, etc.
>
> He does NOT beat you over the head with stories of pollution and woe.
> They do get mentioned - esp. phosphate runoff from farmers who use too much
> fertilizer.  And why can't they regulate that?  Marxists are a big problem
> too in Africa.  Why can't they try Marxism without totalitarianism?
>
> bill w
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