From our February issue: contributing editor (and geek legend in his own right) Mike Godwin interviews sci-fi author Neal Stephenson. Note that this one does not, in fact, contain any Matrix-style duels with cyberpunk grand-don William Gibson.
Reason Magazine
Most Popular Stories
Reason RUPE: Public Opinion Survey
- Romney Most Electable Candidate, Yet Gingrich in Statistical Tie Among GOP Voters (1.31)
- Explaining Newt’s Second Surge (1.26)
- George Washington Would Beat Out Romney as Richest President; John Kerry Would Have, Too (1.25)
- New Poll: Americans Aren't Ready for Another War (1.20)
- 2012 Election Match Up: Romney Wins, Paul Might (1.13)
advertisements
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSSGet Reason E-mail Updates!
Manage your Reason e-mail list subscriptionsSite comments/questions:
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
(310) 367-6109
Editorial & Production Offices:
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.
|2.28.05 @ 5:06PM|#
Neal Stephenson kicks ass. When I finally read his Snow Crash, it helped revive my lifelong interest in reading science fiction that began to flag in the Internet age. (Ken MacLeod and Vernor Vinge helped a lot too.)
|2.28.05 @ 5:27PM|#
Stanislaw Lemm rocks, if you're looking for some really cool, somewhat quirky, sci-fi.
|2.28.05 @ 5:29PM|#
I second that! I've read everything neal Stephenson has written, and I suspect that he's one of those rare people who are actually capable of interesting conversation.
|2.28.05 @ 9:01PM|#
"Meet Stephenson today, and you?ll meet a well-muscled, shaven-headed, bearded fellow "...
AHA! Ultimate Fitness Program is Neal Stephenson!!!
Is the interview a quid pro quo for taking out an ad on H&R?
|3.1.05 @ 12:53AM|#
Neal Stephenson:
"I would point out that terrorism is a much more formidable opponent of political liberty than government...terrorism acts as a recruiting station for statists."
The only way for this point to make sense is to contend that terrorism begets more government then existing government does. This might very well be true since statists seem to quite successful in using the threat of terrorism to justify increases on the purview of government such as the Homeland Security Dept, Patriot Act, Iraq war, aid to foreign regimes...ad nauseum.
"So it looks to me as though we are headed for a triangular system in which libertarians and statists and terrorists interact with each other in a way that I?m afraid might turn out to be quite stable."
Want more government (aka less liberty)? Just raise the specter of terrorism or manufacture a terrorist incident or threat. BTW, if we define terrorism as the victimization of innocent civilians and rightly include state fostered terrorism. The US government is financing terrorism when it supports the government of China (their victims being, among others, the people of Tibet), the governments of Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Uzbekistan. The Chinese government uses "fighting terrorism" as a pretext for their barbarous treatment of Tibetans. Our tax money is given to the savage Uzbek regime using the same excuse.
On US tax dollars to China; I assume that at least some of our trade with China is subsidized with US tax dollars in some manner.