owner-extropians@extropy.com wrote:
> Shuttles
> Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1998 10:17:47 +1100
> x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998
> From: Timothy Bates <tbates@bunyip.bhs.mq.edu.au>
> To: <extropians@extropy.com>
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>
> Hi all,
>
> I used to subscribe about 5 years ago. The list was amzaing then:
> completely anti-state and 100% behind the individual. People like Tim
> Starr and Perry Metzger. The most centrally planned project was trying to
> buy an ocean liner to get away from a___holes trying to "melt" other
> peoples property rights.
>
> I just resub'd and the list seems to be a mixture of Stalinist central
> planners and Popular Mechanics. Am I in the wrong list or did Ayn Rand
> recant everything while I was away?
>
Nah, we've just gotten a lot more subscribers from Europe, New Zealand and Australia. Consequently, the number of people with socialist leanings has gone up. They seem to have this quirky notion that you can make everything equal for everyone without stealing anything from anybody, or annoying anyone
while they do it. Of course, the stupermagical Promised One of nano tech is THE WAY to do it, bringing back the old saw of the 'workers paradise'.
As for the Popular Mechanics, why not? Acheiving self soverignty through technology is gonna take practical thinking and lots of technical work, far beyond just heady philosophical talk of PPLs, PPAs, etc.
Getting down to nuts and bolts is the first indication that a) people see extropianism as more than just pie in the sky-ism, and b) 'we have the technology, we can rebuild him, make him better....'
Mike Lorrey