Re: Herding Extropycats [was Shame on Australia]

From: Russell Blackford (RussellBlackford@bigpond.com)
Date: Sun Sep 02 2001 - 05:32:46 MDT


Charlie said

>You'd ascribe a libertarian streak to David "more liberal than thou" Brin?
>Yeesh! (Mind you, I've heard him talk a few times. Unless he's had a 180-
>degree conversion he is _no_ libertarian.) As for Greg Bear, he's no
>libertarian either. Small-c conservative, maybe, but again, unless he's
>drifted radically out of where he used to be there's no way I can see of
>calling him a libertarian.

Well, these comments actually strengthen the point I was making, of course,
since you're criticising a *concession* I made (as you obviously realise).
Of the B-boys, Gregory Benford is the only one I know well. He certainly
does have a libertarian streak. Perhaps I'm just projecting this onto the
others, but I realise that some of Brin's writing, in particular, is
critical of libertarianism.

>(Are you going to try and tell me that Ken McLeod is an objectivist? ;-)

Nup. Though he does seem able to treat all sorts of political theories,
including Randian libertarianism with a great deal of knowledge and seeming
sympathy. Despite those Prometheus Awards that he won, I take it he is
really some kind of socialist. Is this correct? Forgive my ignorance, but
I'm not very clear on where some of the new crop of UK hard-sf writers fit
in. I even tend to get Ken McLeod mixed up with Ian McLeod. But some
excellent work has been coming out from the UK of late.

Russell



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:23 MDT