Readings This is an interesting coverage of the politics of the book and movie form of “Starship Troopers”; years ago I enjoyed both, and I’ve thought about it every so often since when watching the evolution of American politics. In recent years, despite having left my Libertarian views many years back, I’ve come back in contact with people in those camps online, and I’m realising that many of the groups that self-describe as “trad” may in fact be fairly friendly to Heinlein’s ideals. This bothers me. I see a lot of value in pluralism, I don’t value masculinity, and while I may share some of their enemies (particularly progressivism), I consider their perspectives also abhorrent. I sometimes wonder whether Heinlein’s society would be more stable than broad-franchise Democracy. Although even if it were, that would not be an argument for it. Reasonable stability is good enough. If we went overboard with maximal stability, a sterile Terra with no humans alive would likely be quite stable. Wouldn’t make it worthwhile.
2021-11-20
2021-11-20
2021-11-20
Readings This is an interesting coverage of the politics of the book and movie form of “Starship Troopers”; years ago I enjoyed both, and I’ve thought about it every so often since when watching the evolution of American politics. In recent years, despite having left my Libertarian views many years back, I’ve come back in contact with people in those camps online, and I’m realising that many of the groups that self-describe as “trad” may in fact be fairly friendly to Heinlein’s ideals. This bothers me. I see a lot of value in pluralism, I don’t value masculinity, and while I may share some of their enemies (particularly progressivism), I consider their perspectives also abhorrent. I sometimes wonder whether Heinlein’s society would be more stable than broad-franchise Democracy. Although even if it were, that would not be an argument for it. Reasonable stability is good enough. If we went overboard with maximal stability, a sterile Terra with no humans alive would likely be quite stable. Wouldn’t make it worthwhile.