Libertarians Are Icky…

…and the things that some of them think are cool are really gross and nerdy! Alternet enforces the lefty thoughtcrime mode on "singularity"/transhumanist/futurist/extropian thinking, on the grounds that…well, it's really strange and people like Peter Thiel, Bryan Caplan, and Reason's own science reporter Ron Bailey are weirdos and "the thought of living forever among narcissistic libertarian cyborgs makes death's cold embrace seem more like a squishy hug from the Easter Bunny."

Of course, the connection with this sort of thinking and libertarianism qua libertarianism is more a sociological accident; there is nothing inherently "libertarian" about that stuff, in a political sense, though it certainly will be liberatory for all humans, left, right, libertarian, whoever, the more we master those techniques of life extension and consciousness control.

Anyway, we transhumanist libertarian cyborgs will miss ya in the year 2525, Alternet. A little. Maybe.

Comments

[Adonisus]

What is this Alternet you speak of, primitive humanoid?

[Hazel Meade]

If someone invented an immortality drug, progressives would almost certainly want it banned and the research suppressed as a danger to humanity.

[MNG]

How do you figure that Hazel?

[Hazel Meade]

People need to die eventually to prevent overpopulation.

[Robert]

Don't succumb to paranoia. Progressives were among the leaders in the public health movement. If anything, they seem to over-value human survival.

[joshua corning]

The left oppose GMOs, DDT, free trade with the third world and implement health care policies that discourage medical innovation.

All of these left wing policies substantially lower the life expectancy of billions of people on the planet.

The left also have a long history of starving people to death as well as simply out right killing poeple.

[MNG]

I don't think fighting overpopulation is a central tenent of liberalism.

And I also doubt seriously that liberals oppose free trade and support government health care because they hope it will lower life expectancy.

[MNG]

In fact, most liberals I know that are concerned with overpopulation are concerned with it exactly because they think it will lower life expectancy. You can say the same about all the issues you name.

JC, that was either amazingly ignorant or disengenuous.

[JD]

In fact, most liberals I know that are concerned with overpopulation are concerned with it exactly because they think it will lower life expectancy.

...even as both population and life expectancy keep going up. "amazingly ignorant and disengenuous (sic)" describe something, but it isn't libertarians.

[MNG]

Do you deny that the reason most people who are concerned about overpopulation give for that concern involves harmful effects on mankind?

[Psychic Octopus]

Voluntary extinctionists don't care about the harmful effects on mankind.

[MNG]

And what % of liberals do you think are "voluntary extionists?"

[Psychic Octopus]

Not many. Their own sites claim a movement membership in the tens of thousands worldwide (and even that really means "in the developed world"). They're probably more, if we count other movements with similar ideas (eg, like when Earth First rooted for AIDS), but I would still not put them above some two hundred thousand worldwide.

[MNG]

If they are a small fraction of liberals then why bring them up? I mean, I guess I could pick some nutty group that represented a small fraction of libertarians to represent libertarians, but what good would that do anyone?

[Psychic Octopus]

It's not unlike how most conservatives characterize libertarianism on drugs and defense and how liberals do it on economic and fiscal.

[TallDave]

MNG,

Not for environmentalists. A big chunk of them seem to think we need a "sustainable" human population for the sake of the poley bears.

[Sean W. Malone]

MNG, their intentions & concerns may very well be that humanity will suffer in the long term with "over-population", but that doesn't make those concerns well founded or their intentions something that would validate incredibly stupid policies.

[Hazel Meade]

I'm talking progressives.

Who are generally to the left of liberals, and more likely to feel that the welfare of the planet is more important than the lives of humans.

[MNG]

"more likely to feel that the welfare of the planet is more important than the lives of humans."

Do you have any evidence for such a nutty statement?

[MNG]

I'm not sure how you are differentiating liberals and progressives, but nearly anyone I've seen express a concern about overpopulation see the welfare of humans to be a, if not the, major reason to be concerned with the welfare of the planet.

[Hazel Meade]

For fuck sake, retard, just read some of the coments by Chad or Tony.
Or go hang out on any progressive forum for five minutes.

[Hazel Meade]

Gah. I'm supposed to come up with "evidence" that many progressives think the welfare of the planet supercede human welfare?

Are you INSANE? Are you just being a DICK? It's what they will fucking say straight up to your face!!!

[MNG]

Well then this evidence would be easy to produce.

[Hazel Meade]

Fuck you, dicdk. I don't have to go produce evidence that Christian conservatives believe the bible is the literal word of God.
They say so all the time, and only an asshole would ask someone to go dig up evidence to support that statement.

Ergo, you're a fucking asshole, and I'm done with you.

[MNG]

Chad and Tony are not the belleweather of liberalism, and I doubt they have said that the welfare of the planet, unconnected to the welfare of mankind, is more important.

[MNG]

I mean, is Al Gore a person who thinks the welfare of the planet is more important than the welfare of mankind?

Because if so I wonder why so much of his movie was about the harmful effects of global warming on mankind. What was up with that?

[Psychic Octopus]

Because it always converts more to scream "think of the children" than "fuck the children".

It works for both sides, of course, not just for liberals.

[Applederry]

I'm all for biological and cybernetic enhancement, but I've never seen the appeal of brain uploading myself. It's the classic teleporter problem: your body is encrypted and destroyed at one point and then transferred and decrypted at another point, but is this new body really you? Maybe we can make a digital imprint of our brain structure at a certain moment, but I don't see how that imprint would be "me" anymore than a self-portrait.

I just think there's more to human consciousness than brain chemistry.

[Tristan Band]

And I think there isn't.

[fresnodan]

"...but is this new body really you?"
I sure as f*ck hope not - I want one with a much, much bigger male connector.

[Neu Mejican]

Two points:

1) an individual's human consciousness is entirely encompassed by the functioning of that person's brain, but the mind is not entirely encompassed by consciousness.

2) the brain exports many of its functions onto its environment already (particularly in the form of culture), so there is an argument that the mind is more than brain chemistry (electro-chemistry) and depends upon elements outside of the individual's brain.

[Citizen Nothing]

Well, I'm glad that's finally cleared up.

[Spencer Smith]

We are but a conglomeration of our memories of our experiences and reactions to them.

Learn to replicate this and you will live forever.

However, I advocate clones of oneself that this data can be mapped into, not cybernetic components.

[Psychic Octopus]

Unless the molecular / genetic clock component is cracked, clones will buy you increasingly less time each time you clone.

[joshua corning]

Learn to replicate this and you will live forever.

You mean learn to replicate this and your copy will live forever.

[Spencer Smith]

NO. That is all you are.

[joshua corning]

My body is my property and my property is me.

My copy cannot take my property, my life, my wife and my land.

If he wants those things then he can go get a job and get them himself.

[Spencer Smith]

So, your house is you? So if I punch your house it's like punching you? You meant mine instead of me, right?

In such a scenario as I was envisioning, your old body would die when you transplanted yourself into your new clone.

[Neu Mejican]

In such a scenario as I was envisioning, your old body would die when you transplanted yourself into your new clone.

There are all kinds of problems with this. The most basic being about the nature of brain development and the importance of input in that development.

Then there is the whole...enslaving another human thing. Your clone would be a unique individual with the same inalienable life and liberty that you have.

[Azathoth]

The >identity< will be able to move across the interface ensuring continuity of existence rather that duplication of same.

Over time the >identity< will be able to operate a fleshform in tandem with expanded technological function.

[Psychic Octopus]

Simple cell renewal would imply that the body you are occupying today isn't really the body you occupied a year ago, much less a decade ago. Except for your neurons (those that have survived alcohol and crack :P), none of your currently live cells was alive too long ago.

That's not even to mention dramatic changes some people undergo only in their minds: in political ideas, in religion, in what team they support, and so on.

[James C Bennett]

I imagine that the trick to avoid the "teleporter problem" with respect to mind uploading would be to not do it all at once. Would you fear that you were "no longer you" if we replaced, say, one of your brain cells with a prosthetic brain cell that trnasmitted its input and output to and from a brain cell simulator on a computer? What if we then replaced all the brain cells that connected to the prosthetic brain cell with other prostheitc brain cells connected to other brain cell simulators? What if we repeated this process untill your brain was entirely composed of prosthetic brain cells? And what if we then reset the brain cell simulator connected to your first brain cell simulator so that instead of transmitting its input and output to the prosthetic brain cell, it transmitted it directly to the brain cell simulators connected to the prosthetic brain cells adjacent to the first prosthetic brain cell? Now part of your brain is entirely virtual--are you no longer you? What if we repeat this process until your entire brain is composed of brain cell simulators on a computer somewhere and the only prosthetic neurons left are the once that connect your virtual brain to the nerves in your old body? I think in a scenario like this, no one could ever question if the uploaded mind was still you.

[anon]

I love the link to the hack biologist PZ Myers as some sort of intellectual counterpoint to Kurzweil. Myers has repeatedly been destroyed by Kurzweil in discussions about the Singularity. Kurzweil debating Myers (or truthfully, almost anyone who disagrees with him about his points) is like Michael Jordan playing a game of basketball against a 4 year old girl.

Kurzweil is right about the future, of course. Nobody has been more correct - just have a look at the extraordinary success rate of the predictions made in "The Age of Spiritual Machines."

[Neu Mejican]

Kurzweil is sort of right. Except for the whole "uploading your mind" thing. We are way farther from that than he thinks...primarily because we have no idea what we would be uploading.

[SIV]

yup

[omg]

I was thinking about this myself. What interface does your brain use? USB?

Can you transfer your consciousness into the machine, or can you simply fork a parallel process?

Hopefully with all the thoughts of every human being ever working together, we can find a way to massively reduce the net amount of entropy in the universe.

[Fluffy]

I doubt that an uploader would ever be feasible.

It would also suffer from the "transporter" issue Applederry talks about.

Here is the question, though:

Let's say it was possible to mechanically replace an individual neuron using molecular-level machines like nanobots.

And we replaced just one of your neurons, and integrated it into your brain.

Would you still be you? Of course you would - right?

OK, so now replace two. And then four.

And keep doing that until you replace 5% of your brain.

Are you still you?

And then come back next month and do another 5%.

Do you reach a point at which you aren't you any more?

Whatever consciousness is, it clearly is a process that uses a large number of ultimately disposable components. You have brain cells dying all the time, but you remain conscious.

So the question is whether you could gradually replace your brain's perishable components with durable ones, whether mechanical or biological [and at the molecular level there may not be that big a distinction between those two anyway].

[capitol l]

Some would say that anything that is indistinguishable from you would be you.

[Fluffy]

Maybe to others it would be.

But that's like saying if you just copied me and made a second me, while I was still walking around, that it would "be me".

It wouldn't be. And if someone then shot me in the face, I wouldn't say, "Oh, this doesn't matter, I'm still alive as that other guy over there."

[cynical]

Of course not. But, if you traveled to an alternate reality and killed yourself, you would still be a murderer (and a fan of terrible movies).

[capitol l]

And the other Fluffy would think the exact same thing...That you, Fluffy I, is the 'other guy', and that he is genuine.

[TallDave]

But it would be you, to the extent you are even you, which you technically aren't, because identity is a snapshot in time: you're not precisely the same person you were yesterday, or an hour ago, or before reading this. Since we generally concede a continuous physical identity over time, there's no reason not to concede one over space, too, given sufficient similarity.

Of course, in practice the property rights are a bit sticky, but the theory is sound.

And of course it will be very very very difficult to synthesize the ten trillion chemical triggers that give rise to consciousness as we experience it now. (OTOH, it might be more interesting to expoerience machine consciousness anyway.)

[Neu Mejican]

Fluffy,

Indeed...this is a far more likely scenario. That said..."engineered nanobot" neurons that are as robust as real neurons are probably farther off than quick and easy ways to manufacture neurons directly. Advanced repair systems for the biological system seems a more promising route...perhaps.

[Fluffy]

That said..."engineered nanobot" neurons that are as robust as real neurons are probably farther off than quick and easy ways to manufacture neurons directly.

They might not need to be as robust.

Because if we can replace neurons one-for-one, we should also be able to vastly increase the numbers of neurons. So rather than add the nanobot neurons while zapping your biological neurons like bugs, you might want to just keep all of your biological neurons while adding brain*10th power more nanobot neurons.

[Psychic Octopus]

If they weren't at least almost equally robust, you'd need a way to replace them after their useful life ends, or to repair them in situ. Either is itself not an easy task. Eventually, you would find a way to, well, transfer the whole somewhere else, repair or replace all the hardware and reinstall. And then it would be indistinguishable from mind uploading.

[Tristan Band]

I adore Alternet's articles on war and civil liberties. Nevertheless, I have come to expect this for a long time. Basically, libertarianism is considered a pathology by all groups. We're selfish; we're part of the right-wing conspiracy (never mind the fact that right-wingers regularly hate on us); we're idealistic; we're opportunistic; we're just rich white nerds. Basically, we're everything that is wrong with the country. We caused the crisis. We caused any economic and social ill.

And by the way, conservatives would surpress that immortality drug too.

[Tristan Band]

What I'm trying to say is, "Well, what else is new?" The only difference between the 90's (when a lot of the lefty criticisms on Alternet really got started) and now is that the general public is more inclined to believe them. Prior, the general public would ignore both parties.

[SIV]

And by the way, conservatives would surpress that immortality drug too.

Go TEAM BLUE !

[Spanish Legionnaire]

Long Live Death!

[KPres]

Yep. Can't have people playing God.

[Psychic Octopus]

The average conservative would suppress that because "it is playing God".

The average liberal would suppress that because "it is dangerous and untested and cannot have that much power in individuals' hands".

I would be very interested in the debates that would arise when it wasn't just speculation but a round-the-corner possibility. How would the debates on children, on "think of the children", on abortion, on schools, on sexual abstinence and on porn would look like? How about pensions, health, and care for the old? How about criminal sentencing, increasing sentences, death penalty, "life imprisonment" (it is a distinct possibility that in such a case "life without parole" would seem a worse punishment than death penalty)?

[PapayaSF]

I disagree. Some conservatives might object, but most would just see it as a medical advance, assuming the drug wasn't made by dropping fetuses in a blender or something.

The left would object on grounds of "fairness": how dare those rich folks get the treatment, while the poor don't! And the racial imbalance! Etc. They'd demand the government be in charge of distributing it "fairly."

[Neu Mejican]

"the thought of living forever among narcissistic libertarian cyborgs makes death's cold embrace seem more like a squishy hug from the Easter Bunny."

This isn't a comment about immortality.

[capitol l]

Yes, we are so terrible to be around that you just can't help yourself to be here all the time.

Fucking loser.

[Neu Mejican]

I didn't write the article...I have no problem with libertarians.

You, however, seem to be an uptight ass.

[Spencer Smith]

No homo.

[capitol l]

Uptight ass?! Gawd, why the fuck should I listen to a guy that can't even recognize an insufferable prick when he sees one?

You thought that you made a clever little quip, and now you want to disown it, okay.

[Neu Mejican]

You thought that you made a clever little quip, and now you want to disown it, okay.

No. I was pointing out that the basic premise of the post...that the author found ideas about immortality icky...was inaccurate. At least as far the the quote goes.

[cynical]

They have to live around libertarians right now too, tragically. Maybe they should just go ahead and end it all.

[Fluffy]

Anyone else notice that the guy writes an entire article about something called The Singularity but is too stupid and semiliterate to even know what it is?

And that he doesn't even know that he doesn't know, since it would have taken him eleven seconds to check Wikipedia and find out?

[Tristan Band]

Not really.

[Fluffy]

Not really what?

[MNG]

Is that really a leftist way to view libertarians? One can only imagine what conservative uber-Luddite/prude Leon Kass would have to say about these topics (google his name and "ice-cream").

[Fluffy]

Good point.

The fundies would probably see it as a plot to stop Jesus from coming again or something.

[OK, I stole that from a science fiction novel I read.]

[Tristan Band]

That's the point I've tried to make earlier. Righties have it in for libertarians too, probably more than lefties because they know how disloyal to the right libertarians can be.

[Yonemoto]

You don't actually spend any time with conservatives, do you? Liberals will spend time spinning straw men and even shunning you after losing a debate... Conservatives will put on a smile and, man, the makeup sex is awesome, because they are humble enough to admit (at least on the inside) that they're wrong.

[TheZeitgeist]

The meek shall inherit the earth, because the strong will explore and enjoy the ENTIRE REST OF THE FUCKING UNIVERSE.

[Spencer Smith]

+1

[Art-P.O.G.]

Thanos? Is that you?

[MNG]

I'm pretty liberal, and I simply can't think on what liberal principle immortality drugs would be objected to...I guess there would be bitching about unequal access to the ddrug or something...

[Spencer Smith]

OVERPOPULATION! The environmental concerns over an immortality pill would be GREAT and constant.

[RichN]

Progressives Against Progress
http://tinyurl.com/3a4bmpr

[KPres]

Death is the great equalizer.

Don't want to lose that.

[KPres]

Plus, if everybody was immortal, evil right-wingers might be able to get away with privatizing Social Security.

[capitol l]

It would be great to see Chad try to explain how ss can be solvent and give everybody infinite lifetime benefits...with cost of living increases.

[cynical]

Indeed. If everyone cannot be immortal, equality demands that everyone be mortal. Granted, since some people die in infancy, everyone who has been born should be killed. Starting with egalitards.

[MNG]

Wow, what an honest attempt to understand the other side's worldview! I mean, that's exactly how we reason at our weekly secret meetings!

[cynical]

Only the idiots on the other side. Equality and liberty are best buddies until equality goes full retard.

[MNG]

Yea, by that logic people who say they are for liberty must be for marrying their dog and child porn...

[Psychic Octopus]

Well if their dog really insists in humping the pron, let at least the sanctity of marriage cover the liaison!

[Yonemoto]

Wrong. Marriage is a state instititon. And the state generally intrudes upon liberties, hence, failed marriage rates going up with statism.

[Spencer Smith]

What a horrible argument.

[Psychic Octopus]

Well they're already against Genetically Modified food (crops or cattle). It is only half a step away from being against an immortality pill.

[Citizen Nothing]

"...unequal access to the drug..."
This.

[CJ]

I'm pretty liberal, and I simply can't think on what liberal principle immortality drugs would be objected to... guess there would be bitching about unequal access to the ddrug or something...

You got the main one. The other one is that bigots would live and vote forever--making "progress" is harder when old ideas literally never die.

[John McCain]

But I'm a maverick!

[KPres]

Liberals have always been major technophobes. It's in the Luddite blood. That one commenter, Parvaneh Ferhad, is without a doubt the next Ted Kaczynski.

[joshua corning]

Liberals have always been major technophobes.

You mean the left. Liberals before FDR were all about innovation. The 1900 worlds fair was put on by classic liberals. It was the progressives that poopooed it.

[Neu Mejican]

Wait...weren't the progressives all about using science to engineer a better world? Guess it depends upon what you mean by "progressives."

[Fletch]

Wait...weren't the progressives all about using science to engineer a better world? Guess it depends upon what you mean by "progressives."

"Progressive"- Has no clue about economics and wants to kill the Niggers and Retards because "science" says they aren't the "right" kind of people... (See W.J. Bryan, W. Wilson, M. Sanger, et al).

Hasn't changed much in the last 100 years...

[Irresponsible Hater]

So is this "Alternet" some kind of clearinghouse 15-years-behind-the-curve trend articles?

[IceTrey]

The first sentence proves this article is crap. Seasteading isn't just for the rich. Someone has to take out the trash. These people obviously don't care about the jobs of seafaring service workers. Also who wouldn't want to escape the clutches of democracy? Democracy is just "tyranny by the majority". You'd think someone tech savvy enough to write online would know America is a republic.

[Brett L]

"You'd think someone tech savvy enough to ... would know ..."
First time on the internet?

[Art-P.O.G.]

LMAO

[Hazel Meade]

MNG,
Progressive already have it in for human cloning and genetic engineering. Human cloning I see no rational basis to oppose, and GE is primarily about making humans smarter, healthier, and longer, lived. But their against that for weird reasons that appear to be a combination of 'it's unnatural', and 'nobody has a right to better genes'.

So what makes you think they WOULDN'T oppose an immortality pill?

I'm my interactions most progressive seem to have a negative general reaction to any suggestion that human might evolve themselves to live lonfer. And yes, it is generally on environmental or social-egalitarian grounds.

[Michael]

Didn't read the article, went straight for the comments instead. My favorites so far, in summary:

"Transhumanism is bad because sex with a robot would be icky!"

...and...

"I'm a transhumanist, NOT A LIBERTARIAN! How dare you lump me in with such vile filth???"

[Hazel Meade]

people already have sex with robots.

http://www.fuckingmachines.com/site/?c=1

!!!!!NSFW!!!!!

[thenino85]

"Anyway, we transhumanist libertarian cyborgs will miss ya in the year 2525, Alternet. A little. Maybe."

You sure man will be still alive?

[Yonemoto]

Alternet enforces the lefty thoughtcrime mode on "singularity"/transhumanist/futurist/extropian thinking, on the grounds that...well, it's really strange and people like Peter Thiel, Bryan Caplan, and Reason's own science reporter Ron Bailey are weirdos and "the thought of living forever among narcissistic libertarian cyborgs makes death's cold embrace seem more like a squishy hug from the Easter Bunny."

Fallacy of CONVERSE ACCIDENT.

This information doesn't change the fact that Ron Bailey is weird

[Neu Mejican]

As far as I can tell it takes a lot of delusional mental gymnastics to construe this as a "left-versus-right" issue. The correlation between people's views on transhumanism and/or human engineered immortality and politics is going to be very, very low. Among those that DO oppose, you are likely to find some using conservative arguments and some using "leftist" arguments.

I do believe tribalism is the main threat to immortality. If you had a minority of people with the resources to implement immortality treatments, I am pretty sure the have-nots would eventually use that as an excuse to wipe them out with violence.

Liberals have always been major technophobes.

False on its face. You might be able to make a "technophobes are usually liberal" argument...but I don't think that would fly. Maybe..."some technophobes are liberal."

[Sean W. Malone]

Agreed that it's hard to make it a right vs. left issue, but it is kinda funny where on some issues liberals are technophobes (i.e. genetic engineering, new crops, etc.) and some where conservatives are (stem cells, contraceptives, etc.)...

What's really bizarre to me is that with conservatives (at least the religious ones) I can actually understand why they care, even if I think it's stupid... With the liberal issues, I just don't get it at all.

Science & technology are awesome... Why all the sci-fi paranoia?

[TallDave]

With left-liberals, I think it just interferes with their trendy chic pessimism and general need to feel like they're "helping the poor" via gov't intervention.

Try explaining to lefties that the average income of the 1950s in real dollars is below today poverty's line (and far below it in living standards) and you'll see what I mean.

(And if you then ask them to extrapolate that trend for the next 50 years... well, you'd better be ready to run.)

[Neu Mejican]

ask them to extrapolate that trend for the next 50 years

Well, the trend in real dollars flattens out substantially by about 1965, so it would be an odd request.

[Sean W. Malone]

Funny since in 1964 we instituted a monolithic "War on Poverty" that has funneled hundreds of billions of dollars to unions & community groups. One would think the trend would have continued downward as it had before the government decided to take over.

[Neu Mejican]

Do you mean "upward"?

We were talking average income. The main point is that picking the 1950's as your starting point sets you up to distort your trend line (due to the effects of the depression and WWII you would be starting in a trough).

[Sean W. Malone]

Actually you can broaden the trend line and it still applies, it's just not quite as striking as the 20 years between WWII and the "War on Poverty"...

That said, thanks for bringing up another gigantic instance of government intervention destroying the economy for years.

[Sean W. Malone]

But PS... The fact that between 1945 and 1964, the government intervened in the economy much, much less than in the preceding AND succeeding years and we saw a huge amount of growth and consequently a reduction in poverty rates should tell you something.

Many, if not most of the mainstream academic economists in the mid 40s were predicting that reducing government spending and "laying off" all those soldiers who didn't need to fight a war anymore was going to tank the economy and precisely the opposite happened. Cause instead of the government sucking up all the resources either to put people to "work" doing nothing useful at all and then sucking up all the resources to bomb parts of Europe, Japan & Russia, our resources went back into producing stuff ordinary people wanted & needed.

That would be pretty nice right now, but we're repeating the same mistakes... Weeeee!

[Neu Mejican]

You seem to be falling for the narrative fallacy. Perhaps.

[Sean W. Malone]

Yeah... Uhh... Hardly.

The data overwhelmingly backs up my comments above.

[Fructose]

Am I really the only one who noticed that they called Ray Kurzweil "Roy" Kurzweil.

[TallDave]

"the thought of living forever among narcissistic libertarian cyborgs makes death's cold embrace seem more like a squishy hug from the Easter Bunny."

Hey, don't let us keep you.

Really.

Head there today, if you like.

[Hazel Meade]

This distinction between liberals and progressives...

By my account, progressives are greener, more socialist in their economics, but not exclusively state-socialist., They range from anarcho-syndicalist to social-democratic. They may be influenced by John Zerzan or by Naomi Klein.

They probably think Al Gore is a corporatist dweeb, and most likely voted for Ralph Nader in 2000.

[Hazel Meade]

Liberals are more mainstream. They probably are more influenced by Michael Moore than Naomi Klein, want to work within the system rather than overthrow it, and their preferred method of saving the planet is by purchasing expensive "green" consumer goods which they can be seen publicly consuming, rather than bombing a genetically modified tree farm.

[Sam Grove]

"the thought of living forever among narcissistic libertarian cyborgs makes death's cold embrace seem more like a squishy hug from the Easter Bunny."

Maybe it will catch on.