Re: Herding Extropycats [was Shame on Australia]

From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Sun Sep 02 2001 - 09:54:30 MDT


Charlie Stross wrote:
>
> On Sun, Sep 02, 2001 at 10:06:45AM +1000, Russell Blackford wrote:
> >
> > ...... There is, admittedly, a
> > libertarian streak in the group of American hard sf writers led by Benford,
> > Greg Bear and David Brin - but it's only a streak. These people are far more
> > complex thinkers than that.
>
> 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.
>
> (Are you going to try and tell me that Ken McLeod is an objectivist? ;-)

Quite. I'd say that the real libertarians are of the
Heinlein/Niven/Pournelle/L.Neil Smith/Spider Robinson cast of writers.

>
> > So my question remains. Why does the extrolist show the same mentality as
> > one sub-set of sf fandom, whereas the sf-related lists I've been on have
> > shown a totally different mentality?
>
> I suspect it goes back to the seed effect of the extropian principles, Max
> More's original declaration, and group-think within the original extropian
> cadre -- who are, to be fair, Americans and largely drawn from (a) hard-SF
> readers and (b) the technology venture culture of Northern California.

Which is an automatic filter for technically astute males, of course.



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