Netherlands (was Search Engines)

From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Sun Apr 27 2003 - 10:10:58 MDT

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    On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 11:42:54AM +0200, Anders Sandberg wrote:

    > I guess one common source of errors is data from different times. GNP
    > and population changes. Measuring land mass is also surprisingly
    > nonconstant. In coastal areas it can change quite a bit. Even worse, it

    Of course in the Netherlands that's deliberate. :)

    Time for a rant I've wanted to get off:
    Not having been able to actually visit the place, I still have this notion
    that the Netherlands are the most consistently extropian place on the planet,
    at least in the senses I care about. The US may have more extreme edges, but
    those co-exist with pre-Enlightenment Christianity. The Dutch have the most
    libertarian view of prostitution and drugs (not sure about their sex, although
    they had a sensible statutory rape law), last I saw they seemed to have the
    best balance between Europe's general social net and more US-style liberal
    markets, they *make their own land* (compare that to the US's stolen frontier,
    with gov't backing, not that the Dutch colonial history isn't nasty too) and
    are still at it, at least they added a province in 1986. Historically they
    sheltered lots of Jews after 1492, consciously set up a red light district in
    the 1600s (quoting Simon Schama, and maybe that's nothing unique but he
    brought it up), were inventing tulip market bubbles while Jamestown was
    starving to death, and founded what became the US's engine of capitalism (New
    Amsterdam->New York.)

    True, they're not as anarchist as US extropians tend to be. Possibly your
    view of the world is different when you live a few feet below sea level.
    "Yes, we are coercing you to pay for the dikes. Deal with it or drown."

    -xx- Damien X-)



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