OT:authoritarian or libertarian was Re: [Gllug] Whitelist-only spam filtering

[Rich Walker]

Sean Burlington <sean at uncertainty.org.uk> writes:

> David Damerell wrote:
> > On Thursday, 12 Sep 2002, Sean Burlington wrote:
> >
> >> libertarian: a beliver in free will, a person who believes in the maximum amount of free thought,
> >> behavior etc
> > That is _not_ what the word is used to mean these days.
> >
> 
> OK so you disagree with me (and the dictioanary)
> 
> given that it is hard to gather a reprentative sample of people and ask them how they use the word
> libertarian - what do you actually have against me using it in this
> way ??

The most common use these days is that of organisations like the
"Libertarian Party", or the Extropians. (Yes, I was bitten by Perry
Metzger as a small child). This is a philosophy that, roughly
summarised, believes that success in the "free market" as measured by
personal capital is (almost the) the sole measure of value. It also
seems to believe in contract law. Ken MacLeod's "The Stone Canal" is
quite a funny extrapolation of what happens when this model is used...

[snip]

cheers, Rich.


-- 
rich walker | technical person | Shadow Robot Company | rw at shadow.org.uk
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