From: "Russell Blackford" <RussellBlackford@bigpond.com>
> My probem is that the word "liberal" gets used as an insult or a put-down,
> as in "liberal schmalz" (which was what I reacted to), especially when
> people are arguing with Olga or Miriam. I guess Olga and Miriam can look
> after themselves, but there is this tendency on the list to suggest that
> people like them are wrong *because* of their liberal qualities. There
> sometimes seems to be a background assumption that social demcratic ideas
> ipso facto lack legitimacy.
Well, maybe social democratic ideas lack legitimacy because they're presented
as social democratic ideas instead of as just plain good ideas that don't need
to be validated by political association. Personally, I have no political or
religious preferences at all (no really, it even says so on my dog tags and my
cv ©¿©¬ ).
When I took the comprehensive political questionnaire that determines
political ideology coordinates, and compares that to British politicians
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
(OK, it's just another bogus test, but) I liked my result: Dead center between
left and right, and two points closer to libertarian than authoritarian. For
all I know, that's what they show for everyone who takes the test.
So, how did you score?
> This *may* be because some of the leaders of the extropian movement have
> strong libertarian views, but I don't see any necessary connection when I
> read the extropian principles.
I'll go along peaceably with that delineation, and only add that extropian
principles, IMNSHO, ought to promote extropy, viz., the self-organization
which opposes entropy. Any political (or even general) views that get in the
way of extropy should be by-passed, superseded, defeated, debunked, abandoned,
dismissed, or (my favorite) identified as useless.
©¿©¬
Stay hungry,
--J. R.
Useless hypotheses, etc.:
consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
analog computing, cultural relativism, GAC, Cyc, Eliza, cryonics, individual
uniqueness, ego
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