Re: ESSAY: Steven Weinberg on Today's Utopias

From: hal@finney.org
Date: Mon Jan 10 2000 - 11:44:28 MST


Joseph Sterlynne, <vxs@mailandnews.com>, writes:
> "Five and a Half Utopias" by Steven Weinberg (in _The Atlantic
> Monthly_).
>
> http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/01/001weinberg.htm

This was a very annoying article, although I think it was intended that
way. He's not even consistent, objecting to the free market because it
makes the poor envy the rich their life of leisure, but objecting to a
technological utopia because it would free people from having to work.

He wants equality, but he still wants to choose who gets into his grad
school. What about those people he disappoints? Do they "deserve" this
suffering, to use his language?

Overall it's a real mess, and the only thing I can conclude is that he
was intentionally trying to be provocative.

Hal



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