On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Tim May wrote:
To expand on this point:
At 10:58 AM -0700 10/19/00, Tim May wrote:
Indeed. We used to have the reasonable expectation that nearly
everyone on the list had some familiarity with the "classics." For
example, Friedman's "Machinery of Freedom," Hazlitt's "Economics in
One Lesson," Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom," Vinge's "True Names,"
Card's "Ender's Game," Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," Brunner's "Shockwave
Rider," and maybe even some of the writings of Spooner, Benson, Von
Mises, Tannehill, Hospers, and Rothbard. These works helped to
establish a common vocabulary, a common set of core concepts.
Not that everyone was a libertarian, let alone a Libertarian. But
the core concepts were known, and those who didn't know about them
were motivated to go off and look them up. We had fewer folks
arguing for socialism in those days.
The point is not that people must be indoctrinated into the correct
ideology, but that these and similar books captured the Zeitgeist of
our times vis-a-vis cyberspace, the collapse of borders, the
internationalization of commerce, etc. Throw in "Moore's law and the
geodesic network" if your initials are the same as Heinlein's.
It's not important that everyone read _every_ one of these books. But
it _is_ important that they read and internalize at least _some_ of
them.
I find those lists useful because i find that a number of them I have not
read. I prefer recomendations from sources that might share my interests
than those that might be just a paid shill for a the book publishing
company. (Like, say, the New York Times Best Seller List(tm).)
Not all of us have the free time to research interesting book, or the
exposure to the same sources. The lists are helpful.
I also recommend a list of books that piss people off while reading.
Things like "The ICSA Guide to Cryptography". (The most pro-GAK crypto
book I have ever read. I keep it as a reminder of which libraries and
products to avoid.)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply
Alan Olsen | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys.
"In the future, everything will have its 15 minutes of blame."
