Well, like I said, he's also an anarchist. He thinks governments
are a
crock of shit.
A classic example of how hard it is to get out of meme space. To be
an anarchist is to be infected by a political meme the same as being a
fascist. As an example my mother in law has a friend who is a Filipino nun
who believes Marcos was a saint ... of course she comes from a fairly well
to do family so noone she knew was tortured/executed by the security forces.
The bottom line being where you stand on any govt. is probably in relation
to how well you're doing under that govt..
He would like to see Cyberspace take over as the new
"greatest country" on earth, which isn't that impossible to imagine.
Really? I would think if Cyberspace were the govt then life would
be dandy ... as long as you never left home. Our homes would have gigabyte
data access and our roads would be cowpaths.
He's a little disturbed in some aspects, but he's a good guy over
all,
so long as you don't piss him off ;)
Sounds like Stockholm syndrome to me. You would think from an
anarchist P.O.V. goodness would be measured by tolerance. Without tolerance
anarchy is just fascism. With tolerance anarchy turns into fascism <IMHO>.
I'm not making these points to "correct" you Richard ... or to
change your friend's opinions. I'm trying to show that by my understanding
of memetics ... the focus of this list ..."Good & Right" are based on
natural selection and that natural selection operates within a continuous
environment. For arguement's sake consider the collapse of communism:
while the problems with unbridled capitalism are evident to the historical
observer the mechanisms that democracy put in place to adapt capitalism are
by definition more efficient then the mechanisms that Stalinism and Maoism
tried to dictate. Personally, I find Stalinism and Maoism sufficient proof
that anarchism <essentially the govt. immediately following revolution> is
untenable.