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From: SSteinberg.SoftArts%MIT-MULTICS@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Message-ID: <3227@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-Jul-83 11:32:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.3227
Posted: Fri Jul 15 11:32:00 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Jul-83 08:22:35 EDT
Lines: 35

For those of you who didn't read my original note I did NOT SLUR The
Moon is a Harsh Mistress.  I merely pointed out that it conforms very
well to the basic Marxist mythos!  I suggest a few people out there read
some Marx or better Lenin who expounded the revolutionary ideals.  If I
had explained that this book was in reality a Christian allegory in
which a creature part man, part god acts as a savior I would have
stirred up much less controversy although this does not fit the story as
well.

As far as I am concerned Marxists and Libertarians are so similar that I
can barely tell them apart and I know a good number of both.  One of my
friends keeps turning up on my ballot so I know she is still a
libertarian and my Marxist friends still feel guilty about how well
computer hacking pays.

Unfortunately, both camps are full of ideologs.  If you are familiar
with the "computer scientist" Dijkstra you know a lot about ideologs.
Ideologs tend to be very naive and a lot of them are terribly informed.
I remember a friend of mine explaining the dangers of the Iranian
revolution to a group of Marxists who didn't realize that the typical
mullah was not the typical South American revolutionary priest.  Both
factions claim to have a well defined utopia although making it work
merely involves circumventing human nature and sometimes the laws of
physics as well.

Once and for all, I liked The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.  I think
Heinlein used to be a great author.  I think he has fallen on hard times
and that his later work does not measure up to his earlier stuff.  If
nothing else his novels are structurally weaker and seem to be two
separate books shoved together in the middle.  I know this is very
fashionable nowadays (e.g. Gravity's Rainbow) but I demand a story.

P.S. I wish to categorically assert (for those who are also on the SPACE
mailing list) that I AM NOT the person who proposed sending a major
science fiction author in the space shuttle and pushing him/her out.