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   Winchell Chung ⚛🚀 (nyrath@spacey.space)'s status on Sunday, 17-Nov-2024 19:29:22 JST Winchell Chung ⚛🚀

   More depressing prophetic scifi reading. From Space Viking by H. Beam Piper (1962)

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Sunday, 17-Nov-2024 19:31:45 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     @nyrath The irony here is that H. Beam Piper was a libertarian …

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     Cadbury Moose (cadbury_moose@wandering.shop)'s status on Sunday, 17-Nov-2024 19:53:03 JST Cadbury Moose

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross

     @cstross @nyrath

     ...and eventually it killed him. (If there had been any kind of support network in those days he wouldn't have run out of food and shot himself, being unwilling to ask for help.) 3:O((>

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Sunday, 17-Nov-2024 21:41:59 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     @nyrath Piper was indeed an avowed libertarian, but like Heinlein, he was a subtle enough writer to portray protagonists whose views and outcomes he didn't personally align with. (Piper, like many other space opera writers of his era, also seems to have had a soft spot for brutal imperialism.)

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     Winchell Chung ⚛🚀 (nyrath@spacey.space)'s status on Sunday, 17-Nov-2024 21:42:00 JST Winchell Chung ⚛🚀

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross

     @cstross

     I'm no expert, but it seems to me that libertarianism is severely at odds with what the main character of Piper's Space Viking was advocating. Especially the bit about the ruling class should be allowed to kill commoners to maintain public order.

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 01:35:27 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Joshua A.C. Newman

     @JoshuaACNewman @nyrath As we discovered in 2016, a whole bunch of self-proclaimed "libertarians" turned out to be unregenerate Nazis.

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     Joshua A.C. Newman (joshuaacnewman@xeno.glyphpress.com)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 01:35:28 JST Joshua A.C. Newman

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross

     @nyrath @cstross
     I’ve found that, in practice, Libertarians seem to really like the idea of authoritarianism as long as they’re on the right end of the stick.

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     Winchell Chung ⚛🚀 (nyrath@spacey.space)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 01:35:29 JST Winchell Chung ⚛🚀

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross

     @cstross

     Which is a polite and gentlemanly way of telling me "don't try to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs". I'll be quiet now.

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 03:34:39 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Joshua A.C. Newman

     @JoshuaACNewman @nyrath Sounds about right.

     Also, as I like to remind surviving libertarians, we've tried a minimalist Night Watchman industrial state already, AND IT DIDN'T WORK. (It was Victorian England. Propped up by an immiserated empire, the poor starved to death every time there was a recession, eventually folks who grew up under it gave us a welfare state and socialism.)

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     Joshua A.C. Newman (joshuaacnewman@xeno.glyphpress.com)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 03:34:41 JST Joshua A.C. Newman

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross

     @cstross @nyrath
     Somewhere about 20 years ago, my Left/Libertarian self recognized that Libertarians, when they grow up, become Fascists — or, when they have thoughts, Socialists.

     Because if you want to prove that you deserve everything and the cheaters stole it from you, you’re a Fascist.

     And if you want to make sure that everyone has the institutional-scale equality that Libertarianism espouses, it means redistributing all power proportionately toward those with the fewest resources.

     Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦 repeated this.
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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:07:01 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Joshua A.C. Newman
     • Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     @JoshuaACNewman @Robert_Brandt @nyrath Also, it depends on your metric for "productivity". I'm a shit agricultural worker or factory hand! But if you want SF novels, I'm your man. What do you want to optimize your society to achieve?

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     Joshua A.C. Newman (joshuaacnewman@xeno.glyphpress.com)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:07:03 JST Joshua A.C. Newman

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     @Robert_Brandt @cstross @nyrath
     There’s also a valid point to be had that no everyone can be productive. People who are just weird, who are disabled, who are old or young, also need to be a part of the society.

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     Robert Brandt (dragoner) (robert_brandt@spacey.space)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:07:04 JST Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Joshua A.C. Newman

     @JoshuaACNewman @cstross @nyrath True, and in NYC there were a lot of resources, plus we were rabid recyclers. Though for the second, democray does help, at least to vote out the bad, except they are more to the benefit of those with skills, becoming "worker paradises" for better or worse.

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     Joshua A.C. Newman (joshuaacnewman@xeno.glyphpress.com)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:07:05 JST Joshua A.C. Newman

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     @Robert_Brandt @cstross @nyrath
     Such things work, I think, when there’s enough resources (labor, bandwidth, wood…) to satisfy all needs, which is most of the time.

     The dangers are two, I think:
     1: Psychopaths run away with power because the redistribution system is linear, not exponential like power gain is.
     2: In order to keep anyone from running away with power, a community isolates extraordinary individuals from the resources they need to do the unexpected, lest they run away with the power.

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     Robert Brandt (dragoner) (robert_brandt@spacey.space)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:07:06 JST Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Joshua A.C. Newman

     @JoshuaACNewman @cstross @nyrath Both a win for collectivism, community. Though like lucky seven's roof started to cave in from their rooftop garden and they put out the call, and bunch of us appeared from other squats, fixed it in a day. Just told them to get us the posts and a case of beer.

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     Joshua A.C. Newman (joshuaacnewman@xeno.glyphpress.com)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:07:07 JST Joshua A.C. Newman

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     @Robert_Brandt @cstross @nyrath
     Unions and squats seem like a pretty fuckin good model of governance.

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     Robert Brandt (dragoner) (robert_brandt@spacey.space)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:07:08 JST Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Joshua A.C. Newman

     @JoshuaACNewman @cstross @nyrath Meanwhile the squats lasted multi-generations until destroyed by hypercapitalism and rising property values.

     Though being a union carpenter I also had it good, as the squats actively vied for tradespeople as members. So rose colored lenses and all that.

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     Joshua A.C. Newman (joshuaacnewman@xeno.glyphpress.com)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:07:09 JST Joshua A.C. Newman

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     @Robert_Brandt @cstross @nyrath
     Yeah, and in ... Arizona, I believe, where they literally ran out of water because they'd been buying it from a municipality that then needed it and stopped selling it to them, and they couldn't make themselves admit that they were so wrong that they were all about to die in the desert.

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     Robert Brandt (dragoner) (robert_brandt@spacey.space)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:07:10 JST Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Joshua A.C. Newman

     @JoshuaACNewman @cstross @nyrath Libertarians also tried in New Hampshire and were attacked by bears.

     A lot of this is like sitting the squat on the lower east side in the 80's and having discussions about politics over a balantine and crass. Fascism is the politics of failure, it's about forcing ideas on people, usually after the popular will rejects them.

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     Joshua A.C. Newman (joshuaacnewman@xeno.glyphpress.com)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:07:11 JST Joshua A.C. Newman

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross

     @cstross @nyrath
     The ridiculous thing is that all it takes to undo that learning is one generation of austerity that damages education and then we have to start pulling lords off horses again.

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:19:23 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Matt McIrvin
     • Joshua A.C. Newman
     • Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     @JoshuaACNewman @Robert_Brandt @mattmcirvin @nyrath What happened when now?

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     Joshua A.C. Newman (joshuaacnewman@xeno.glyphpress.com)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:19:25 JST Joshua A.C. Newman

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Matt McIrvin
     • Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     @Robert_Brandt @mattmcirvin @cstross @nyrath
     Again, look at the giant shit Stewart Brand took in the collectivist pool.

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     Robert Brandt (dragoner) (robert_brandt@spacey.space)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:19:26 JST Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Matt McIrvin
     • Joshua A.C. Newman

     @JoshuaACNewman @mattmcirvin @cstross @nyrath That, and philosophy, such as the "personal relationship with God" vs the more collective Taoist approach. I don't know how or why it started, or even if people are conscious of it.

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     Joshua A.C. Newman (joshuaacnewman@xeno.glyphpress.com)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:19:27 JST Joshua A.C. Newman

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Matt McIrvin
     • Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     @Robert_Brandt @mattmcirvin @cstross @nyrath
     Of the first variety, yeah.

     They’re “Libertarians” because they inherited the empty land from the guys who shot all the people living there and figure that means they deserve it.

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     Robert Brandt (dragoner) (robert_brandt@spacey.space)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:19:28 JST Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Matt McIrvin
     • Joshua A.C. Newman

     @mattmcirvin @JoshuaACNewman @cstross @nyrath The whole west is full of libertarians, which I think is sort of hyper-individualism. Due to a variety of reasons.

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     Matt McIrvin (mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:19:29 JST Matt McIrvin

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Joshua A.C. Newman
     • Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     @Robert_Brandt @JoshuaACNewman @cstross @nyrath And yet, New Hampshire is still absolutely full of libertarians, living in more conventional societies and complaining that the government is oppressing them.

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:53:24 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Matt McIrvin
     • Joshua A.C. Newman
     • Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     @JoshuaACNewman @Robert_Brandt @mattmcirvin @nyrath Oh dear.

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     Joshua A.C. Newman (joshuaacnewman@xeno.glyphpress.com)'s status on Monday, 18-Nov-2024 06:53:26 JST Joshua A.C. Newman

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross
     • Matt McIrvin
     • Robert Brandt (dragoner)

     @cstross @Robert_Brandt @mattmcirvin @nyrath
     Stewart Brand’s big fear was Communism making everyone conformist. So he talked himself into being a Newt Gingrich supporter because, by the 80s, he was rich and felt like he deserved it. After all, everyone told him what a wise visionary he was.