[extropy-chat] Heinlein and thinking for yourself

[Stephen Van_Sickle]

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
 
> Yes, it is the common Proudhonian supposition that
> we have a debt to
> the past generations which built the civilization we
> currently live in.

I don't get that at all.  I had interpreted it as
meaning that MacKinnon didn't realize that he was
deliberately removing himself from the economic
systems that made it possible for him to buy and pay
for such things as the turtle.  Not that he owed a
debt...quite the opposite. How could he owe a debt to
past generations for something he would never be able
to get again?  Those end products "of the cumulative
effort and intelligent co-operation of hundreds of
thousands of men, living and dead" were now denied
him, and he didn't realized the implications of that. 
If he had, he would have bought a burro and use the
money he saved on trade goods,

steve