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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: <3127@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-Jul-83 05:59:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.3127
Posted: Fri Jul 15 05:59:00 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Jul-83 17:16:00 EDT
Lines: 39

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.