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6/22/2008 1:23:59 PM
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J
Posts 21
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Dear Stan,
Kudos for the articulation of the idea that the meaning of liberty in society is that each person may do whatever he wants, subject to not infringing on the same rights of others, in your September 2008 editorial, "'It's All About Me,' Writ Large."
I'm concerned, however, that you've fallen for the latest excuse/attempt to destroy individual liberty. I think that environmentalism is seen by many as the last best hope for the restoration of tyranny.
But individual liberty, particularly with regards to individual property rights, to earned property, including land (and legitimately derived rights, such as by inheritance and contract), is actually better for the environment, due to "the tragedy of the commons" effect. When a resource is held in common, it is instantly obvious to all that any work put into it to try to improve it will only result in any improvement being looted by everybody else. The reason that this is not commonly talked about in society is that it is in everybody's best interest to talk about the importance of generosity and giving -- if someone doesn't, retaliation is generally harsh. But the effect remains. People generally don't talk about it, for self-protection, but they naturally practise it, for self-protection. Only the insane or the self-sacrificing, who are arguably the same in some cases, would voluntarily work to contribute to public property. This effect explains why communist/socialist areas/countries are in bad shape: Russia is a polluted third-world basket case, and China, today practicing socialism in the name of capitalism, is crowded, polluted, and looting its people via high inflation. I have close second-hand knowledge of those first two in reports from friends who have just immigrated from China. They don't want to live there because it's too crowded and polluted. When land is held in common, it becomes polluted because everybody can dump their garbage on it. Then "the solution is" all sorts of laws, which cannot be described as "freedom", and still doesn't work as well as individual property rights.
I get the impression that many think that those annoying Heinlein fans should shut up with their concerns about burgeoning tyranny and die along with him.
Best regards,
-J
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6/22/2008 5:45:51 PM
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pc
Posts 2433
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Hello J.
I would add another layer to this.
Levitt and Dubner, of Freakonomics fame, have been studying the actual effects of the Endangered Species Act. It's a case study in the Law of Unintended Consequences -- not too pretty.
Rural American land owners know they may be deprived of the use of their private land, and without compensation, if any endangered species is found to inhabit said land. So they often take steps to make sure the species will not move in, such as, prematurely cutting down trees (of the type that) the Red Cockaded Woodpecker prefers to nest in. Maybe even, making a woodpecker or two quietly vanish, before a Federal representative spots them.
It's stupid and counterproductive to society and the ecosystem, and brutish and illegal for the citizen.
Meanwhile, in Africa and elsewhere, 'ecotourism' is being encouraged. Getting the locals to benefit from the presence of an endangered animal. (In practice, some cute or noble beast, such as Black Rhinos or Snow Leopards.)
So, why not pay a land owner for every nesting pair of woodpeckers present? Pretty soon we'd be overrun with the critters! Ah, but our venal government and combative environmentalists would rather make landowners into convenient whipping boys . . .
Here in California we are in a drought emergency right now. In part because we had a dry Spring season, but just as much, because of one Federal judge. Seems this tiny fish is dumb enough to get sucked into these big water pumps, so the ruling was, turn off those pumps and let the fresh water flow down into the ocean. (The millions of people in LA can drink tequila instead.)
Meanwhile, my CO2 emissions ration card has expired, so I'll be holding my breath for the next two weeks, until the renewal period rolls around. Unless I can buy -- or cheat -- my way into getting one sooner?
--
This post was made from 100% recycled electrons.
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6/22/2008 11:02:59 PM
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fotsgreg
Posts 1658
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pc, Pay me $5. I'll go plant 2 trees somewhere for ya'. That's get you a month's worth of carbon credits until your ration card can be replenished.
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6/24/2008 5:20:19 AM
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designmemetic
Posts 4
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I disagree with your argument and would like to suggest an alternative interpretation/explanation for William Faulkner's paraphrased quote, "the human heart in conflict with itself is the only thing worth writing with" and also your interpretation and explanation for the "English teachers dismissal of science fiction as 'too cut and dried'(which to me only proved they had never done any or if they tried didn't understand what they were doing)"
1) Your article itself entitled "'It's all about me' writ large” is about heart of humanity (I'm universalizing Faulkner’s paraphrased quote to humanity as a whole rather than a single individual's hear. I'll defend this generalization later if you object). You are writing not about technology or science in this article but about humanity and human behavior and you yourself are having a conflict with the heart of other humans, specifically English teachers. This single counter example to your claim does not invalidate your generalized claim, but is a striking self contradictory counter example of your claim. It is suggestive of self contradiction. It leads me to. . .
2) An alternative reason for Faulkner’s statement that also better explains your observations of English teachers "too cut and dried" explanation is that science/physics/the world around us have a well established empirical process for resolving disagreements and reaching consensus and conclusions. I suggest that the epistemology of Science and science fiction is much more developed than that of the human heart. You will probably agree with this. I know I find it frustrating as a former electrical engineering student who has been happily reading analog for over 25 years without missing an issue when I run across the fuzzy self contradictory non logical and often times irrational disagreements of the human heart. I am currently pursuing a career in graphic design and can personally verify that the science and science fiction are much less contentious issues. People just agree more in the sciences and science fiction areas and when they disagree they keep track of their disagreements better. Sadly in matters of the human heart and human disagreements about people things such as the worth of a design or policy decision people seem to continually revisit the same arguments that have been resolved in ignorance of the resolution and reasoning behind these resolutions.
But your claim that therefore science is more important and science fiction more worth writing and reading about does not follow. More likely the inverse is true. That since the human condition and human heart are so poorly understood they need to be written about more so that they may one day become as resolved as science and science fiction. I love science fiction, and consider emetics and how we as humans deal with issues perhaps the most interesting question explored in science fiction. So when Faulkner suggests that science is not worth writing about, perhaps it is because science is less contentious and writing is designed to change people’s thoughts and ideas. Writing about science is therefore trivial and easy compared to writing about people. It is not hard to convince someone that technology x will have the following possible result because people generally agree on the methods for making such a convincing argument and the methods for evaluating, accepting or rejecting it. The epistemology of science is largely solved but the epistemology of the heart and the human condition has not even been explored and agreed upon. So using the principle of Occam’s razor I suggest that you have found two separate explanations or possibly a single more complicated explanation for the rejection of science fiction when this one single more simple explanation will do. The single explanation being the meme that the human condition/heart is more worthy of writing about because it is so much less well understood and understandable than science.
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6/24/2008 5:29:00 AM
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designmemetic
Posts 4
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(continued from previous post. sorry for rambling. I don't think It won't happen again for years)
Interestingly I read on Physorg.com quite often lately about advances in understanding the human heart and the human condition using statistics, psychology, biology, game theory and other formerly hard scientific methodologies for modeling and prediction events related to humans as well as the more traditional uses of predicting non human behavior such as weather or likely hood of an asteroid impact.
3) Your argument about English teachers rejecting science fiction is inherently week and quite likely a straw man tactic. Your "proof" is simply the observation they rejected science fiction. Your conclusion as to why they rejected it is at best speculation and not in the proof category at all. How would you even evaluate whether they had "gotten it."? You’re making assumptions about their internal mental state they would most likely disagree with. So you know their mind better than they do now? And you say at the same time that science more important than the human heart? I think you wrongly assume you know their human heart while simultaneously declaring that writing about the human heart is less important than they claim. Most significantly, your argument about English teachers rational and motives for rejecting science fiction is disturbingly universal. Anytime someone claims all instances are proved x or y (x being not having tried writing. Y being not getting it) is on very shaky logic grounds. Especially when Y is not testable and poorly defined. (typically human dilemma problems are harder to test and define) It would take only one person who has written science fiction and "gotten it" to claim matters of the human condition and human heart are all that was worth writing about to refute your argument.
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6/24/2008 5:32:39 AM
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designmemetic
Posts 4
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(yes this is the final post I'll make. sorry for taking your time. I wrote all this before aI realized the 4000 character limit and just think I'm so smart I can't delete what I wrote without sharing. I know, it's egocentric and annoying. I'm sorry. If it's any consolotaion, I just renewed for 3 years subscription and I just signed in and registered because of this article I felt strongly about and will go away for a long time now)
4) I believe you misunderstand them. In my understanding of communication theory a message that is sent through a channel it is sent by and a message that is received. the non-scientific messages seem to get garbled more often and suffer from greater noise than science fiction and scientific messages (more evidence they need extra writing attention) In this case I do not believe Faulkner was suggesting science and science fiction magazines should not exist. I think he merely made a personal opinion and expanded it to universality to generate contention debate and be provocative. Why did he do that? Because it worked. he got you to repeat what he said. He was not ignored. The meme he promoted was spread by you against your will even. I consider that very effective and if it's not science fiction to study and talk about how that happened then it must be the human heart and the human condition that holds the key to why he would say such a thing and why it should be so effective at changing people's minds. Perhaps it is most likely that the memetic viruses of the human condition are much more complicated and interesting the simple tame memetic virus types found in the epistemology of science and science fiction. By tame I mean to suggest that the scientific ideas behave in a well mannered way that is predictable and easily countered or impossible to counter. Like a child’s game of tic tac toe. a science fiction scenario is quickly and easily determined to be either plausible or not my an informed reader or else can be safely categorized as definitely not able to be determined at the present time until x knowledge is available. Most reasonable and reliable minds will agree with this conclusion. Such is not the case with ideas on scenarios of the heart and the human condition which is why I consider the memes and ideas of writing about people to be much more complicated. I believe Faulkner would consider science fiction writing to be the proverbial "low hanging fruit" of the written genre.
Oh, by the way, I would also like to see more science fiction receiving awards. I agree with your conclusions, but strongly disagree with your argument. This is very surprising to me since I consider most of my arguments and ideas to have come from you in the past and count you as my major analytical role model.
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6/24/2008 9:50:30 PM
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pc
Posts 2433
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Hello DM. (Have we seen you here before?)
Don't recall any shortage of tales about the human heart. If Romance novels count -- and don't you or any English teachers diss 'em -- there are a few profound ones among those groaning book store shelves.
I suggest that the epistemology of Science and science fiction is much more developed than that of the human heart. You will probably agree with this.
Despite their lifelong kissing-cousin relationship, in your given context, these two are hardly to be compared!
I assume your "memetic viruses" the same thing as the semi-pop-culture item known as Memes?
(An interesting, and very controversial, topic.)
For some reason I am reminded of a book still popular when my mother got her Master's in Psychology, Eric Berne's Games People Play. This was followed by dozens of others, each purporting to categorize all human relationships, and provide tools to enhance them. (I saw a measure of wisdom in each book I came across, though of course, nothing like an 'ultimate' solution.)
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.
edited by pc on 6/24/2008
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This post was made from 100% recycled electrons.
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6/25/2008 8:14:31 PM
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Mike Flynn
Posts 809
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I suggest that the epistemology of Science and science fiction is much more developed than that of the human heart.
pc
Despite their lifelong kissing-cousin relationship, in your given context, these two are hardly to be compared!
MikeF
Epistemology of science fiction? Hardly to be compared, indeed. Epistemology is about knowing. Fiction.... Well, many writers of SF seem to assume that their purpose is to lecture the reader on the Truth, so there is a sort of didacticism. But then the "epistemology" consists of stacking the narrative deck and loading the plot. Those of Whom We Disapprove are portrayed as evil or bufoonish [depending on our didactic purpose]. This often stems from True Believership in the Whatever.
The real challenge is to show Those of Whom We Disapprove as having redeeming qualities -- and I don't mean that they really wish they could be "just like us Good Guys." And it doesn't hurt to see Our Guys with flaws.
The musical Urinetown is subversive in this regard [although it cannot resist the stock cliche of the Evil Corporation.] The Evil Corporation controls all toilets. You have to pay to pee. It is a crime to pee in private. [In actual fact, this would be a Government Agency, the FPA, imho.] The excuse is a drought: water must be conserved. After the Revolution -- Pee for Free! -- all the water is used up and people die of thirst because.... the draconian controls of the Evil Corporation really was saving everybody from the drought.
To put it another way: even the Antagonist has his own reasons, and believes he is Doing the Right Thing.
And presto -- the human heart in conflict with itself.
Otherwise, Urinetown would be a "sci-fi" story about the wonders of hydrology and plumbing.
+ + +
pc
I assume your "memetic viruses" the same thing as the semi-pop-culture item known as Memes?
(An interesting, and very controversial, topic.)
MikeF
Some people need to believe in invisible, non-material entities that control their lives. Thoughts -- the old and more accurate word for "memes" -- are in reality not reducible to "building block units" any more than an ocean current. Unlike genes, which were discovered through painstaking scientific effort, memes were simply made up.
--
"It has become clear that the desired objective reality of the elementary particle is too crude an oversimplification of what really happens." -- Werner Heisenberg
Mike Flynn's Journal
TheTOFSpot
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7/19/2008 11:15:04 AM
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J
Posts 21
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This thread seemed to get a bit off-topic. I had a follow-up which I meant to express in my original message, but don't recall doing, quite. Here it is, also emailed to Stan:
Dear Stan,
One thing I meant to express in my previous message was the irony of the defeat of individual liberty in your mind and the victories of the forces of tyranny (in the minds of many), which are now using the environment as their excuse. The battle for individual liberty isn't over; the current defeats truly constitute "turning back the clock". Victories for individual liberty took a long time and took a major step forward thanks to The Renaissance and the founding of the USA, but now they are being eroded, due to many invalid excuses.
Best regards,
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7/19/2008 4:26:56 PM
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AndrewCrisp
Posts 104
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I read Dr. Schmidt's editorial as a comparison between the first establishment of individual rights and our current efforts to establish a kind of "species rights" or "planetary rights". Yes, it means a limiting of individual freedom but generally the kinds of "freedoms" that we can do without (freedom to kill our neighbors and take their stuff, for example). The end result was better conditions for all concerned (for example, I don't have to go to sleep with a knife or a gun at my side). Now we're having to extend those rights and responsibilities beyond just us humans, and we stand to gain a similar benefit in terms of improving the well-being of our species (establishing freedom from extinction, for instance).
However, if I read your concerns right, you seem to be suggesting that individual liberty should be all-important, even if the laws that would limit it would otherwise guaruntee our survival. Liberty is important, but if I had to choose between liberty and life, I choose life.
That said, our current efforts to establish a "declaration of species rights" seem to me to be as haphazard as the first attempts to establish laws and constitutions to begin with. We're getting some things right, but also - as PC noted - getting some things wrong as well.
Here endeth my opinion.
--
"A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting." - The Doctor
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8/2/2008 12:05:15 AM
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E. Mark Mitchell
Posts 8
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the thing about individual liberties (and yes, they are important, and I believe in them, etc.) is that they are generally enjoyed in a social context. I'm an individualist, but I recognize that, as individuals, we must still interact and coexist and not murder each other over X-Boxes, etc. This is why laws and rules exist. And in general, over the everyday life, they work pretty well. We don't have a moment-to-moment fear that our neighbors are just going to bust in and slaughter us, or steal our things.
By and large, we can get through the day without undue paranoia, and part of that is because we live in a social context. The best form of observation of liberties, I've always thought, is the old saw "your right to swing your arm stops where my nose begins," i.e. yes, you have your rights and liberties, but so do I, and you're not allowed to compromise mine just because you feel you're free to. Mind you, not everyone who wants relief from restrictive rules is cognizant enough of others to respect the inherent fairness of this, which is, you know, why we have rules that they feel are restrictive. But most of us coexist because we can inherently understand and live under the social code of self-limitation. We stop swinging our arms short of people's noses, because we know it's not fair, or we know it's more trouble than it's worth, or we know our lives would get very complicated and difficult if we went around hitting noses all the time.
The way I read it, Dr. Schmidt is merely proposing we start looking at our existence as a species within the environment of the planet in much the same way we look at our existence as individuals within the environment of our neighborhoods. This doesn't have to impact on individual liberty any more than the social context does, really; I tend to think it's largely a knee-jerk reaction in various people who tend to focus very narrowly on their favorite issues (yes, yes, I'm a victim of the same, keeping close up on my favorite trees, but on other issues, I'm also able to pull back and check out the forest). But like all the editorials, he's really just trying to make us think. I tend to enjoy a lot of Dr. Schmidt's editorials because I find he frequently thinks like me, if I'd had a lot more experience and a vastly more interesting and successful life. But even when I disagree, I don't think he's proposing the establishment of a tyrannical society of government heavies looking to destroy the small guy in favor of government bloat and huge corporate excess.
I mean, we got the Bush administration for that noise, we don't need some magazine editor's advice to make it real.
Okay, okay, maybe I'm just restating some of the things that have already been said. However, in my defense, it's ME stating them now, so they're inherently more interesting. 
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9/13/2008 12:38:02 PM
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J
Posts 21
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Andrew,
>the kinds of "freedoms" that we can do without (freedom to kill our neighbors and take their stuff, for example).
But Stan is saying that we have to rethink that due to the environment; i.e., it's OK to kill our neighbors and take their stuff, in the name of the environment. This is a fundamental turning back of the clock, not an advance, and it represents what the forces of tyranny have always been trying to do; they've simply latched on to this new excuse.
E. Mark Mitchell:
>We don't have a moment-to-moment fear that our neighbors are just going to bust in and slaughter us, or steal our things.
You might want to reread my previous post(s).
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9/13/2008 1:43:25 PM
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pc
Posts 2433
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Reminds me of something, no doubt unoriginal, I cooked up during a foray into the basement next door.
Eleventh commandment:
Thou shalt not smoke cigarettes in thy children's presence, nor feed them transfats, lest the Nannies carry thee away.
Twelfth:
Thou shalt reduce thy greenhouse gas emissions, lest Gaia rise up and smite thee.
Break these, and a very serious Inquisition will impose itself upon your lives.
--
This post was made from 100% recycled electrons.
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9/13/2008 3:04:40 PM
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fotsgreg
Posts 1658
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California banning transfats, smoking everywhere including the privacy of one's own home (but only tobacco, not marijuana for "medicinal" purposes (not that there's anything wrong with that)), hands-free cell phone(ry?) now mandated by law, Draconian watershed rules...
Seems to me the Nanny State is already present in California.
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9/16/2008 11:10:07 AM
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John Thiel
Posts 1323
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"Writ Large" is what I noticed most about the editorial.
--
"And you, Schopenhauer, does your philosophy lead you to Shiloh?"
"Only if Shiloh's in Texas..mm rar, I'm struttin' for some good barbecue!"
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9/25/2008 11:51:27 AM
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John Thiel
Posts 1323
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The editorial title calls considerable attention to Stan himself. However, "Writ large" is colonial language from the days when the pre-revolutionaries were colonists. When there came the revolution, Benjamin Franklin said of a document he'd inked, "I'm writing this so large King George can read it without his spectacles."
Of course, the remark referred back to the Magna Carta, which was originally sent back unread.
--
"And you, Schopenhauer, does your philosophy lead you to Shiloh?"
"Only if Shiloh's in Texas..mm rar, I'm struttin' for some good barbecue!"
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11/2/2008 1:29:36 AM
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J
Posts 21
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Dear Stan,
I just read your response to my first message (below -- at top in the forum here) in your Jan/Feb 2009 editorial.
You certainly do often complain that people read things into your editorials that you never wrote, so I wonder if nobody has ever replied to you with the following explanation: what I was doing, if no-one else ever did, was trying to point out implications that would result, in my opinion, from the way you're talking. Obviously it's your opinion that those results do not follow, so that should be the debate: whether these implications follow, not whether I made a direct mistranslation. In your case, you seem to be honestly confused about that, but I've certainly heard one debate (elsewhere, on a different topic) in which your type of response was sharpened somewhat into a cheap debating shot: the initiator, when questioned by the responder as to whether he means (a list of implications that might follow from what he is saying), replied superciliously, "Listen closely to me, and you will understand what I am saying." That is clearly intellectual dishonesty; an honest debater would acknowledge that the responder thinks that certain implications would follow from what he is saying. In your case, it just looks like you have a persistent blind spot on this concept. I think you're kind of defensive, however, that is understandable considering that you are outnumbered by your readers and no doubt receive an overwhelming number of responses to each of your editorials. Also, SF fans, being socially maladjusted as a rule, probably aren't very polite most of the time.
[Continued...]
Best regards,
-J
edited by J on 11/2/2008
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11/2/2008 1:33:02 AM
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J
Posts 21
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I did have a sense of frustration that I wasn't getting my ideas across, when I was writing my previous messages. Looking back, I think I skipped a step or two of logic that I thought were obvious. Reading your response, it's clear that that missing point is that it would indeed require tyranny in your envisioned system of some individual property rights (where the property in this case is things like land, bodies of water and air, etc.) embedded in a general communal system, to outlaw unrestrained dumping of waste into the commons. First, you react with astonished denial that you mean any such thing, then farther down, you develop a scenario in which the downstreamers attack the upstreamers, which is really the same thing as one major type of tyranny: the use of bodily coercive force, which is what that one type of tyranny boils down to, in the final analysis. (The other type of tyranny is the taking of private property, which need not involve bodily coercive force at all -- think of fraud, theft or trespass). You might argue that it isn't tyranny to defend a commons from unrestrained pollution, and in that sense I might be guilty of using the term loosely, but in terms of my envisioned system, it's correct to call it tyranny. In my proposed system, there would be no commons at the physical level of land and sea and air; everything would be owned, in pieces or wholly, by specific people. In this sense, pollution is just a violation of someone else's property rights. I'm talking about consistent individual property rights, not the current system of inconsistent ones -- your envisioned system is the current one, which helps explain your and many others' difficulty in imagining any alternative. (Also I'm talking about consistent individual *creators'* property rights, actually, but that may be a discussion for another time. However, I'll introduce the acronym CICPR for ease of typing). In the case of large bodies of water and air, bookkeeping can be done to implement CICPR, as was already done, a bit, in the trading of pollution credits. Smaller lakes can be individually owned and certainly individuals and companies can own segments of rivers. That explained, it becomes clear that introducing coercive bodily force into a free CICPR-based market is tyranny. It's clear that "my" ideas are understood generally: the pollution-credit-trading scheme has been implemented. (You might note that the realization develops that the concept of "freedom" in society should be considered to be CICPR and that violations of that are tyranny; recall many historical examples. I've developed this acronym and rediscovered this concept for myself; if you can think of a counter-example I'd like to hear it). CICPR could even be implemented in the oceans, by international treaty. While the meta, or political, level of this would have to be implemented communally, the entire world economy, at a physical level, could certainly function on CICPR, just as, historically, the republic of the USA implemented a system of CICPR as its economic environment.
That's the meaning of freedom - you can do whatever you want as long as you don't violate someone else's ICPR, with the person in question being part of that, on the grounds of self- ownership, the core property right. ICPR might be understood as a kind of extension of the person. It provides a nice sharp dividing line to prevent all these "clever" laws, which are the bane of liberty, that have sprung up to try to deal with indirect effects from peoples' valid actions. Did I just digress? No, I see your concern about what constitutes infringing on others, which this answers with a sharp dividing line.
[continued...]
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11/2/2008 1:38:51 AM
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J
Posts 21
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To answer your question about whether I thought you were advocating tyranny yourself or just mentioning a belief that others do, it should be clear from the lines you quoted (sufficiently):
"I'm concerned, however, that you've fallen for the latest excuse/attempt to destroy individual liberty. I think that environmentalism is seen by many as the last best hope for the restoration of tyranny."
...that I think you've fallen for advocating it, i.e., been duped into advocating it without realizing it, aaaaannnnnnd that others advocate tyranny, as well.
Your other question: Was I "even hinting that environmental protection measures should be avoided because they might infringe on property rights?" is seen to be self-contradictory, since I'm saying that environmental protection measures should be measures that protect property rights: they are one and the same; there is no conflict.
You wrote that you never disputed that individual property rights are better for the environment than communal control, but then you went on to the upstream/downstream case of individual property rights within an overall communal system, to do just that. That's more than just raising qualifications.
To conclude, I'd like to not miss the point that you are indeed talking about tyranny when you say that "our species must soon learn to get beyond 'It's all about us'". You are indeed talking about implementing a system with police, to threaten (or carry out) bodily coercive force against people who pollute the commons. This can fairly be called tyranny when there is an alternative system available that doesn't involve any commons and its concomitant necessity for big government, that can easily become incredibly byzantine and oppressive, which has happened in the past and is happening again. Any time you set up any kind of common-property situation, you instantly need a long list of laws and orders, which can easily go far beyond any original intended justification -- which it has already. Who's to stop it? This can't be thought of as "freedom".
You're portraying this as a step forward, by analogy to individuals learning that they have to respect others. But analogies are susceptible to breakdown and invalidity. By missing the point that I should not have skipped over in the first place, you missed that your proposal wouldn't be any kind of an advance, but a step back to the bad old ways of tyranny: threats or the use of bodily coercive force, and/or taking of property. The forces of tyranny have always wanted it; the environment is just their latest excuse. Since this invalid excuse works on you, that's what they're using on you. They're slick. They have ways to slip over, under and around your mental block (against tyranny) without you even realizing it.
Increasing the use, to the point of consistency, of individual creators' property rights, would be a real advance in civilization.
I liked the cover of this issue, showing the somewhat tiger-like alien (MD, presumably) scaring the heck out of the patient. If this were "The Simpsons", the guy's tongue would be shown jagged and extended in a scream. I hope he's not a heart patient! Talk about a scary bedside manner! That alien sure looks like he's fit to survive in whatever his home environment is. Talk about "survival of the fittest"! John Allemand certainly is a good dramatic and humorous graphic artist; I always enjoy his illustrations.
Best regards,
-J
[Concluded!]
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11/2/2008 11:42:09 AM
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pc
Posts 2433
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J, welcome back. (Where you been, all summer long?  )
(Note that I've yet to see the J/F 09 editorial in question.)
May I assume the above posts are a concise summary of an ideal libertarian society?
Just curious, you mention treaties -- but treaties between whom?
In practice: what about tall smokestacks, which create voluminous yet diffuse 'far downwind' pollution? Or long outfall pipes into the oceans? (Both are, in fact, already common.)
J, I like your ideas, in theory.
The American founders were clear that only, to paraphrase, a certain 'good quality' of citizenry could make their experiment function.
Those who would not participate in civic duties at all (with, perhaps, religious exemptions); or who prefer to ride in the economic cart and never pull it, instead voting themselves largess; or who refuse to accept the outcome of votes and the passage of laws and the rulings of judges -- will ruin the society and nation.
For an ideal libertarian, or for that matter a 'pure' socialist, society and nation to function -- first, human nature itself must markedly improve!
.
edited by pc on 11/2/2008
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This post was made from 100% recycled electrons.
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