Comments on: To Serve Man

By: felix culpa

felix culpa — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 01:57:04 +0000

Trotsky exposed the fallacy of socialism in one country; Posadas exposed the fallacy of socialism on one planet.
With fallacies like these, who needs enemas?

Odd, the impulse to propagate oddity (speaking as one of the odder sort).
I’d love to see some evolutionary psychology studies, but I’m afraid if any have been done they’ve been performed and expressed with simplistic reductionist flattening and no sense of humour with which to bargain and wager.
And where’s the enlightenment in that, much less illumination?
Maybe if he’d tied it in with quantum chromodynamics he’d be Head of the World Federation today.
He might have been even now nearing completion of The Really Really Big Bomb.

By: Henry (not the famous one)

Henry (not the famous one) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:44:31 +0000

And while the comment is not original, it bears repeating: Trotsky exposed the fallacy of socialism in one country; Posadas exposed the fallacy of socialism on one planet.

By: Walt

Walt — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:37:58 +0000

I like the way Reason periodically reveals the totalitarian impulse behind modern libertarianism, in the way that they are distressed that all organs of society are not working relentlessly and at all times to advance the cause of capitalism.

By: Will Scarlet

Will Scarlet — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:43:27 +0000

The pamphlet continues to lurch from cliché to cliché, bordering on incomprehensibility: “In the same way it is conceivable that a being who raises his hand and produces light, attracts, remakes and organises energy I think I have it. This bit refers to E. T. It is, of course, well-known that E.T. is one of the more significant examples of Hollywood anti-anti-communism.

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:39:45 +0000

the real story of the international communist movement and nuclear war should be totally apparent to everybody by this point.

That it saved us from it? and that we could really use a good interntaional communist movement right about now?

Or… ?

By: abb1

abb1 — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:10:57 +0000

Capitalism doesn’t interest the UFO pilots

Why, I suspect it probably does, but flying saucer politruks keep them safe from the corrupting influence.

By: randomvariable

randomvariable — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:49:56 +0000

Some of my best friends are aliens! Is Icke reading?

By: novakant

novakant — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:13:59 +0000

Never heard of them, but they’re quite right about Biermann being a twit.

By: Roy Belmont

Roy Belmont — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:33:24 +0000

Telling that discussion of anthropocentricity in sovereignty and territorial claims would jump immediately to “alien” life forms, with their anthropoid technologies.
As opposed to say, indigenous human groupings like the Kan bushmen or the Yanomami or other tribal people, or primates, or songbirds, or sharks, or any of the great number of other beings whose territories the discussants have violated and are violating as by right of birth.
E.T. is the same old anthropo-chauvinism with an exotic glamor.
Nothing against actual aliens, mind you.

By: The New York City Math Teacher

The New York City Math Teacher — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:11:32 +0000

I first encountered Posadism in Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum. Heh.

By: SusanC

SusanC — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:46:06 +0000

While the paper itself might be a bit flawed, it opens up a line of enquiry that looks worth pursuing.

On the one hand, we have widespread popular belief in contacts with extra-terrrestrials.

On the other, we have official ridicule.

We can’t explain both of these by saying that it is simply factually true that such contacts are taking place (and, conversely, that they are not taking place).

For at least one of them, we’re led to seek explanations for why people believe it, apart from factual truth. This is absolutely standard in anthropology. But there’s an obvious duality here. If people can believe something for reasons other than the empirical evidence for it, they can also disbelieve something for reasons other than the empirical evidence against it (even if, by coincidence, it happens to be false). So: what’s the state’s motive for disbelieving in extra-terrestrials?

Something about this reminds me of Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals. In an age where God is Dead, the people try to convince the state that there exists a source of power outside the state (namely, the extra-terrestrials); and the state strongly resists.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:39:14 +0000

I seem to remember getting a Posadist leaflet in about 1980 that went on obsessively about the shoddy state of British railway stations, evidence that capitalism had entered its final phase.

By: Jeff Rubard

Jeff Rubard — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:44:08 +0000

I believe the lizard people put this as “tastiest”.

Hell I care. The thought that the Reds might want to demonstrate their love for the US by not dropping the bomb is somewhat more interesting.

By: Righteous Bubba

Righteous Bubba — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:27:28 +0000

I think human life is the best

I believe the lizard people put this as “tastiest”.

By: Jeff Rubard

Jeff Rubard — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:28:05 +0000

I’d like to out myself as a “speciesist”: I think human life is the best, because it’s my life. I don’t know, maybe aliens are okay too. I’d also like to say that the real story of the international communist movement and nuclear war should be totally apparent to everybody by this point.