mwm@ea.UUCP (09/17/84)
/***** ea:net.politics / utcsrgv!peterr / 12:07 am Sep 14, 1984 */ On psychosis: "fundamental mental derangement (as paranoia) characterized by defective or lost contact with reality"; I fundamentally believe that the refusal to acknowledge limits to our resources and the consequent strong network of dependences and institutions for compromise is a defective contact with reality (this is the sense in which I used the word, not the more colloquial "wielding an axe and causing havoc at random"!). p. rowley, U. Toronto /* ---------- */ I think you are confusing the "space is the place" group and libertarians. Admittedly, the two groups have a large overlap, and that same group tends to be technophiles (this discussion got started with the question "why are so many technophiles libertarians?" 'lo these many months ago in net.philosophy, so I'm not the only one who sees this overlap). However, it is possible to be in either group without being in the other. Since you appear to oppose both stances, and I agree with both, and they are highly interrelated, I'll answer them both here. First, on libertarianism and competition. Yup, a libertarian society would have competition among it's citizens. Then again, the only form of society I know of that wouldn't have such competition is a totalitarianism. I'm sure you found that as unacceptable as I do. As for compromise, most libertarians are willing to compromise - and even to work in large groups towards a compromise. However, holding a gun to someones head and telling them "You will do it our way" is *not* compromise. The major difference between libertarians and most (not all) other groups is that we consider the use of threats of physical force to be gauche, and wish to minimize such threats. Others consider them to be unavoidable (socialism), or the norm (most any system based on a democracy). Hopefully, this minimization will lead to more individual freedom, which in turns lead to all the good things you credited anarchism with. Now, on the psychoses I have about the limits to our resources. As far as I can tell, there are only two possible views: either you accept some set of limits, and assume that human society will stop expanding, or you don't accept the limits, and assume that human society will expand indefinitely. I am aware that the second society (an ever-expanding one) is unstable. That doesn't mean that such a society has to collapse, merely that it won't stay in one state (or small set of states) for long. One alternative is that it won't stop expanding. However, the first society (one with limited resources) is also unstable. The problem is that a society *does* consume resources, and you can't recycle them perfectly. Hence, accepting limits on your resources means you are accepting a shrinking set of resources. The only conclusion is that the society eventually vanishes (I guess that makes it stable, but... :-). I fundamentally believe that the human race disappearing from the universe would be a *bad thing.* Since the only way to avoid this (as far as I can tell; if you know of another, please let me know) is to assume that human society can expand indefinitely, I'm forced to assume so. This assumption isn't that bad. Most of the basic hardware for expanding into the solar system is available off the shelf. Serious studies have already been made on technics for expanding throughout the galaxy. It's already been shown that it's theoretically possible to reach M-31 before your crew dies (1G acceleration & deceleration does the trick). We don't yet know enough about the universe to rule out being limited to our universe. <mike