Comments on: BRAVE NEW LIBERTARIAN WORLD

By: David Crowe

David Crowe — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 22:21:47 +0000

I’m just getting caught up on some casts I missed. My two cents worth on the Santa issue is that it’s a bad idea. I never told my kids that kind of thing. Finding out at an early age that my parents were willing to put so much time and effort into deceiving me affected me profoundly. I wrote a bit about my early experiences with the Tooth Fairy in my blog.
http://thehouseofmadness.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-makes-cut.html

By: MichaelWDean

MichaelWDean — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:37:36 +0000

I’ve wondered about that. Maybe I should get
FreedomFeens…….(someOtherCoutnryInTheThirdWorld)

or FreedomFeens.ru in russia. Russia seems very into making money now and still very NOT into complying with America’s demands.

MWD

By: John Applebee

John Applebee — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:21:13 +0000

You guys mention the US having controll over the DNS servers, but there are offshore DNS servers you can point to if they block websites on the stateside servers. Also a certain notable bittorrent site has put out a browser addon for firefox that works around some of the blocking as well.

By: MichaelWDean

MichaelWDean — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 02:04:55 +0000

I read “Stranger In A Strange Land.” in the hospital it takes place in.. Will discuss on the cast next week.

Welcome Eddie!

MWD

By: Eddie F.

Eddie F. — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:59:17 +0000

I just finished “Stranger In A Strange Land.” It was entertaining but disturbing, especially the Luciferian doctrine of “Thou art God.” Is it true, that Heinlein is read at one of the military academies?

By: MichaelWDean

MichaelWDean — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 02:35:05 +0000

Hesperus, all good stuff, and I’d love to see that stained glass photo.

MWD

By: Hesperus

Hesperus — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:12:52 +0000

   Ah brave new world, I once heard it said that such a dystopia is worse than a 1984 scenario simply because everything works well in a brave new world situation. As opposed to almost all other dystopias where everything is completely broken beyond repair. The thing that always gets me about these “theoretical” scenarios is the obsession with production, overproduction and surpluses of everything. An unimaginable bounty of, well nothing really except perhaps guns, or synthetic booze, or something utterly useless.
   Oh and one of the things about George Orwell, the Fabian society has a big stained glass window that sums everything up, I could email you a photo. On it is an image of Orwell thumbing his nose at their glorious plans.
   Thanks for removing that statement that regional defense would be handled by google, it makes me think of that scene in a recent episode of the Simpson’s where Lisa says. “Google, you may have enslaved half the world but your still a damn fine search engine.” I wouldn’t trust google to defend a teriyaki dinner.
   As to how regional defense would be handled in lib-par, well I think the best avenue would be to simply repeal all weapons laws. Including but not limited to nukes, mainly because I would never trust any corporation to defend anything, even their own sweet selves. But two things must be considered, one, obviously a totally free society wouldn’t come into being instantly, everywhere, though that would be nice.
   Secondly, I have been talking to my downstairs neighbor about Iran’s little nuclear program and he stresses that if you have a nuke it takes an awful lot of time and money to maintain them. If a private citizen wants to do that, fine, but it’s kind of a funny image, especially if you are say hiding said radioactive device in your home.
   And the movie atlas shrugged is very good, came within a gnats eyelash of going Galt this month, I still might. But when I came to this realization I sent a long message to 2 friends, here is a small excerpt.

This country has gone from being a place where people build each other and themselves up to a place where everyone tears each other down. It becomes a zero sum game, the concept that you can take the prosperity of some and divide it equally to others is silly, even in theory. Simply because wealth is a far more intangible thing than most can imagine. It’s not money, it’s not even gold or gems, after all what do you have if you have five pounds of flawless cut diamonds and you are trapped on a mountain someplace with no food or water? A slow painful death, what is the difference between a corpse and a living body, both have the same attributes, the same size, shape, components. But things are moving around in the living body, that makes all the difference. It was an unrepentant socialist named Ted Rall who told me that.

On the Santa claus thing, I don’t really have an answer on that, for a long time I have been hearing that Santa is a diabolical construct, Satan claus! Weird stuff, but I haven’t looked into it in detail, but I haven’t thought much about this in a long time. Oddly I believed that Santa existed until I was about 12. But the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny were always laughably fake concepts to me.

By: John J.

John J. — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 21:25:47 +0000

You are welcome Michael D.

As often the case, the truth is weirder than fiction;

Jack Parson’s was a freaky guy … you should check him out – and his relationship with Aleister Crowley, especially since you like Robert Anton Wison.

Wilson wrote a book about Parsons …

By: MichaelWDean

MichaelWDean — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 21:01:24 +0000

Good to know the back story.

Thank you!
MWD

By: John J.

John J. — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 20:51:44 +0000

The bet between Heinlein and Hubbard was real – it happened at a dinner party [apart from a bar] when both were associated with Jack Parson and Parson’s Agape Lodge (OTO), a rocketeer from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. *Captain John Collins (Iron Man foudner) bore witness to those events along with a girlfriend. However, the bet was who could envision a new ‘sci-fi’ religion. Both authors were Navy officers. Hubbard’s was Scientology, Heinlein’s was best presented though Stranger in a Strange Land. Heinlein, rightly, did not trust Hubbard and advised friend John Arwine from becoming involved with him. [* I met with Cpt. John Collins for an extended period of time due to family issues and the Collin's confirmed the 'rumor' as fact.]. Captain John still lives with his wife in Panama.

By: MichaelWDean

MichaelWDean — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:56:10 +0000

Well put, Jenner.

And glad you finally made it here! We’ve been waiting for you! Welcome!

MWD

By: Jenner Davis

Jenner Davis — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:52:30 +0000

On Santa:
Personally, I would not burden my hypothetical children with the myth of Santa for many reasons. Here are 3:
1: Finding out that it’s all bullshit in the manner in which I did, (at the cruel hands of the other first graders), is not something I would wish on my bitterest of enemies.

2: Having to explain why Santa gave the girl in the big, fancy house down the street an x-box, even though she was SOOO MEEAAAN, to a kid who had to get braces instead of gifts this year because there wasn’t money for both.

3: Honesty leads by example.