5 ms·

So what was his politics?

DonHopkins 9y ago
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/trump-is-the-candidate-2/ https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/trump-is-the-candi... "So what do I do? I agree with nearly everything he is for, but I’m better qualified to make it happen. I avoid some issues, but I go for his most popular ones and say, yeah! Want that! And I can make it happen better than he can. I’ve got the experience of working in government, but I’m not the establishment any more than Mr. Trump is. Heck, I’ll offer him a cabinet post. I could use his energy in my administration." -POURNE http://voxday.blogspot.nl/2016/04/jerry-pournelle-on-donald-trump.html http://voxday.blogspot.nl/2016/04/jerry-pournelle-on-donald-... "But he has never wavered on his desire to fill the Supreme Court with Justices as near in scholarship and view to Scalia as possible; that alone would be enough to get me to the polls for Trump if he’s nominated." -POURNE https://newrepublic.com/article/139817/donald-trump-wants-ignore-russia-worry-china https://newrepublic.com/article/139817/donald-trump-wants-ig... Both here and elsewhere, Lukacs argued that as white nations, America and Russia might profitably work together to prop each other up against a planet where they were a racial minority. The right-wing science-fiction writers Jerry Pournelle (an admirer of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini) and Larry Niven pursued a similar argument in their CoDominium novels, a long-running series of novels that started in 1973 and imagines a world where the U.S. and the Soviet Union work together to govern an unruly planet. http://crookedtimber.org/2011/12/12/the-attractions-of-fascism/ http://crookedtimber.org/2011/12/12/the-attractions-of-fasci... At one point, Gingrich was supposed to be writing a novel with his friend, noted authority on the political attractions of Fascism, Jerry Pournelle. I don’t know what happened to it, but I imagine it would have made quite interesting reading (Inferno, Pournelle’s ‘Benito Mussolini redeems himself in an updated version of Dante’s hell’ schlock-epic with Larry Niven, is certainly entertaining if your tastes run to certain varieties of kitsch).
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  "The right-wing science-fiction writers Jerry Pournelle (an admirer of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini) and Larry Niven pursued a similar argument in their CoDominium novels, a long-running series of novels that started in 1973 and imagines a world where the U.S. and the Soviet Union work together to govern an unruly planet." 1) Niven didn't co-write any of the CoDominium novels, as far as I know. Mote had some historical references to it, but it was set hundreds of years after the CoDominium had collapsed. 2) The CoDominium weren't the "good guys" in those books. 3) Pournelle was not an "admirer of Mussolini". Inaccurate to the point of being dishonest.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Don, You're quite aggressive in this thread about someone who just died in a multitude of comments, and it's not like JP will rise up to defend himself. I don't like his politics either and I'm sure that some of what you wrote has merit but please have some respect. This simply isn't the time.
  - DonHopkins 9y ago
    Please read my words correcting the crass misrepresentations and misunderstandings in the post from the guy who attacked the MIT AI Lab with the quite aggressive words "Fuck them", as well as the MIT AI Lab Tourist Policy which POURNE violated, and of course POURNE's own words describing how much effort the MIT AI Lab staff and even RMS himself put into personally helping him and even writing him free software to his specifications, and also the words of an anonymous staff member on the topic, POURNE's enduring legacy, asymmetric audience, and his failure to live up to the responsibility of his celebrity. Specifically: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15221830 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15221830 And finally, read the words [3] of an anonymous MIT-AI Lab member who spent much of their own time helping POURNE and I as well as many other tourists. Even though POURNE isn't around to defend himself, I feel obligated to post this in response to the crass misunderstandings and misstatements of the facts in your attempt to smear the MIT AI Lab and its members (your own words: "Fuck them."), and because I agree with the point that "If he didn't want to have this as his enduring legacy, he had plenty of opportunity to make amends. And the offensive acts were not private ones.", and also with the points about asymmetric audience and the responsibility to do well by one's celebrity:
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      I never used the words 'fuck them' in any other HN post than this one, I think you have your parties muddled up.
      - DonHopkins 9y ago
        I didn't say you did. By 'the guy who attacked the MIT AI Lab with the quite aggressive words "Fuck them"' I meant coldtea. If I meant 'you' I would have said 'you' instead of 'the guy'. But you both implied the MIT-AI Lab staff came off as jerks, and it was coldtea who said "Fuck them", but I was responding to both of your misimpressions that POURNE doesn't deserve his well earned reputation as a drunken abusive jerk. But I still ask both of you to please re-read the words I cited. Do you care to address those? Do you agree that he violated the terms of the MIT AI Lab Tourist Policy, or not? Do his own sputtering mis-punctuated threats of having his Pentagon friends, reporter friends, and even the House Armed Services Committee upset CSTACY sound like he was drunk to you, or do you believe he behaved that way all the time, his behavior was justified, CSTACY flushing his account was not justified, and do you continue to carry his water (or booze) by denying he was acting like a jerk? Again, as the MIT-AI Lab staff member I quoted said, "If he didn't want to have this as his enduring legacy, he had plenty of opportunity to make amends."
- valuearb 9y ago
  You know a lot about things you don't seem to understand.
rbanffy 9y ago
He was a bit too much towards the right-wing conservatism and militarism. I believe the best interests of the US are better served by soft diplomacy rather than the indiscriminate use of military force. One can be respected by either love or fear but only love will get one real loyalty.
- ci5er 9y ago
  Nation-states are not people. Nations have (temporary and shifting) alliances based on common shared interests -- not love. Japan is a great ally. I lived there for over a decade, and I can say that I love the Japanese people. But I will admit - and their people of the WWII generation would too (although - sadly they are (have been) passing too quickly), it took a solid kick in the teeth to get them to calm down and cooperate. Sometimes, with intense nation-state disagreement, things are settled at the point of a gun. Where there is a winner and a loser. I like diplomacy as much (or more) than the next guy ... but it is irresponsible for a nation to be unprepared for when that doesn't work. N.B. Fighting back after Pearl Harbor is a different kettle of fish than exporting democracy by force. We have no business doing the latter. It's obscene. EDIT: I didn't downvote you. I appreciated your take on the query posed.
  - rbanffy 9y ago
    Nations are not loyal but people can be. If you do soft diplomacy right, those people will see your country as a partner and will vote accordingly. I didn't say one shouldn't be prepared to fight, just that fighting is almost never the right way to start it. Being prepared to defend yourself and your allies requires a vastly different inventory than cannon diplomacy.
Pxtl 9y ago
Your couldn't tell from his books? They're full of ineffectual and whiny bureaucrats and academics being put in their place by rugged and noble soldiers and whatnot. I enjoyed the heck out of most of the Niven/Pournelle books I read, but the political didactics weren't part of the fun for me.
- ci5er 9y ago
  So... Like Heinlein? Post-WWII Cold War sentiment of that type was not uncommon. I/We (old people) looked at "big government" as something that collectivists (national socialists (nazis), fascists, international socialists (communists), socialists) did ... and without going all John Birch, even ignoring the air-raid sirens making you (uselessly) hide under your desks, it made one cynical about systems related to people pointing their nukes (back) at you...
  - Pxtl 9y ago
    Maybe their goals were similar, but I always found Heinlein's poltical writing so much more positive that I enjoyed it, even though I didn't like his politics. Heinlein wrote stories about heroic Libertarians and happy soldiers. Pournelle wrote stories about incompetent and deluded liberal professors and conniving politicians. Think about the scene with the kid in Moon is a Harsh Mistress where an entitled Earth boy gets handsy with a woman and they hold an impromptu court for him. In the book, he learns from his mistake and is a "convert" to Heinlein's way of thinking. Pournelle's political writing was much more Manichean - the boy would be an entitled villain to his death.
    - ci5er 9y ago
      Maybe so. I do remember that I found Heinlein a lot "lighter" in his approach to any dialectic. It's been more than a couple of decades since I have read either. It seems that I need a refresher!
    - ci5er 9y ago
      Here you mean "Manichean" to mean 'redemptive' in the moral-dualism sense? If not, what do you mean? (I want to make sure I am reading you as you intend)

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/trump-is-the-candidate-2/ https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/trump-is-the-candi... "So what do I do? I agree with nearly everything he is for, but I’m better qualified to make it happen. I avoid some issues, but I go for his most popular ones and say, yeah! Want that! And I can make it happen better than he can. I’ve got the experience of working in government, but I’m not the establishment any more than Mr. Trump is. Heck, I’ll offer him a cabinet post. I could use his energy in my administration." -POURNE http://voxday.blogspot.nl/2016/04/jerry-pournelle-on-donald-trump.html http://voxday.blogspot.nl/2016/04/jerry-pournelle-on-donald-... "But he has never wavered on his desire to fill the Supreme Court with Justices as near in scholarship and view to Scalia as possible; that alone would be enough to get me to the polls for Trump if he’s nominated." -POURNE https://newrepublic.com/article/139817/donald-trump-wants-ignore-russia-worry-china https://newrepublic.com/article/139817/donald-trump-wants-ig... Both here and elsewhere, Lukacs argued that as white nations, America and Russia might profitably work together to prop each other up against a planet where they were a racial minority. The right-wing science-fiction writers Jerry Pournelle (an admirer of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini) and Larry Niven pursued a similar argument in their CoDominium novels, a long-running series of novels that started in 1973 and imagines a world where the U.S. and the Soviet Union work together to govern an unruly planet. http://crookedtimber.org/2011/12/12/the-attractions-of-fascism/ http://crookedtimber.org/2011/12/12/the-attractions-of-fasci... At one point, Gingrich was supposed to be writing a novel with his friend, noted authority on the political attractions of Fascism, Jerry Pournelle. I don’t know what happened to it, but I imagine it would have made quite interesting reading (Inferno, Pournelle’s ‘Benito Mussolini redeems himself in an updated version of Dante’s hell’ schlock-epic with Larry Niven, is certainly entertaining if your tastes run to certain varieties of kitsch).

Turing_Machine 9y ago
"The right-wing science-fiction writers Jerry Pournelle (an admirer of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini) and Larry Niven pursued a similar argument in their CoDominium novels, a long-running series of novels that started in 1973 and imagines a world where the U.S. and the Soviet Union work together to govern an unruly planet." 1) Niven didn't co-write any of the CoDominium novels, as far as I know. Mote had some historical references to it, but it was set hundreds of years after the CoDominium had collapsed. 2) The CoDominium weren't the "good guys" in those books. 3) Pournelle was not an "admirer of Mussolini". Inaccurate to the point of being dishonest.
jacquesm 9y ago
Don, You're quite aggressive in this thread about someone who just died in a multitude of comments, and it's not like JP will rise up to defend himself. I don't like his politics either and I'm sure that some of what you wrote has merit but please have some respect. This simply isn't the time.
- DonHopkins 9y ago
  Please read my words correcting the crass misrepresentations and misunderstandings in the post from the guy who attacked the MIT AI Lab with the quite aggressive words "Fuck them", as well as the MIT AI Lab Tourist Policy which POURNE violated, and of course POURNE's own words describing how much effort the MIT AI Lab staff and even RMS himself put into personally helping him and even writing him free software to his specifications, and also the words of an anonymous staff member on the topic, POURNE's enduring legacy, asymmetric audience, and his failure to live up to the responsibility of his celebrity. Specifically: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15221830 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15221830 And finally, read the words [3] of an anonymous MIT-AI Lab member who spent much of their own time helping POURNE and I as well as many other tourists. Even though POURNE isn't around to defend himself, I feel obligated to post this in response to the crass misunderstandings and misstatements of the facts in your attempt to smear the MIT AI Lab and its members (your own words: "Fuck them."), and because I agree with the point that "If he didn't want to have this as his enduring legacy, he had plenty of opportunity to make amends. And the offensive acts were not private ones.", and also with the points about asymmetric audience and the responsibility to do well by one's celebrity:
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    I never used the words 'fuck them' in any other HN post than this one, I think you have your parties muddled up.
    - DonHopkins 9y ago
      I didn't say you did. By 'the guy who attacked the MIT AI Lab with the quite aggressive words "Fuck them"' I meant coldtea. If I meant 'you' I would have said 'you' instead of 'the guy'. But you both implied the MIT-AI Lab staff came off as jerks, and it was coldtea who said "Fuck them", but I was responding to both of your misimpressions that POURNE doesn't deserve his well earned reputation as a drunken abusive jerk. But I still ask both of you to please re-read the words I cited. Do you care to address those? Do you agree that he violated the terms of the MIT AI Lab Tourist Policy, or not? Do his own sputtering mis-punctuated threats of having his Pentagon friends, reporter friends, and even the House Armed Services Committee upset CSTACY sound like he was drunk to you, or do you believe he behaved that way all the time, his behavior was justified, CSTACY flushing his account was not justified, and do you continue to carry his water (or booze) by denying he was acting like a jerk? Again, as the MIT-AI Lab staff member I quoted said, "If he didn't want to have this as his enduring legacy, he had plenty of opportunity to make amends."
valuearb 9y ago
You know a lot about things you don't seem to understand.

rbanffy 9y ago

He was a bit too much towards the right-wing conservatism and militarism. I believe the best interests of the US are better served by soft diplomacy rather than the indiscriminate use of military force. One can be respected by either love or fear but only love will get one real loyalty.

ci5er 9y ago
Nation-states are not people. Nations have (temporary and shifting) alliances based on common shared interests -- not love. Japan is a great ally. I lived there for over a decade, and I can say that I love the Japanese people. But I will admit - and their people of the WWII generation would too (although - sadly they are (have been) passing too quickly), it took a solid kick in the teeth to get them to calm down and cooperate. Sometimes, with intense nation-state disagreement, things are settled at the point of a gun. Where there is a winner and a loser. I like diplomacy as much (or more) than the next guy ... but it is irresponsible for a nation to be unprepared for when that doesn't work. N.B. Fighting back after Pearl Harbor is a different kettle of fish than exporting democracy by force. We have no business doing the latter. It's obscene. EDIT: I didn't downvote you. I appreciated your take on the query posed.
- rbanffy 9y ago
  Nations are not loyal but people can be. If you do soft diplomacy right, those people will see your country as a partner and will vote accordingly. I didn't say one shouldn't be prepared to fight, just that fighting is almost never the right way to start it. Being prepared to defend yourself and your allies requires a vastly different inventory than cannon diplomacy.

Pxtl 9y ago

Your couldn't tell from his books? They're full of ineffectual and whiny bureaucrats and academics being put in their place by rugged and noble soldiers and whatnot. I enjoyed the heck out of most of the Niven/Pournelle books I read, but the political didactics weren't part of the fun for me.

ci5er 9y ago
So... Like Heinlein? Post-WWII Cold War sentiment of that type was not uncommon. I/We (old people) looked at "big government" as something that collectivists (national socialists (nazis), fascists, international socialists (communists), socialists) did ... and without going all John Birch, even ignoring the air-raid sirens making you (uselessly) hide under your desks, it made one cynical about systems related to people pointing their nukes (back) at you...
- Pxtl 9y ago
  Maybe their goals were similar, but I always found Heinlein's poltical writing so much more positive that I enjoyed it, even though I didn't like his politics. Heinlein wrote stories about heroic Libertarians and happy soldiers. Pournelle wrote stories about incompetent and deluded liberal professors and conniving politicians. Think about the scene with the kid in Moon is a Harsh Mistress where an entitled Earth boy gets handsy with a woman and they hold an impromptu court for him. In the book, he learns from his mistake and is a "convert" to Heinlein's way of thinking. Pournelle's political writing was much more Manichean - the boy would be an entitled villain to his death.
  - ci5er 9y ago
    Maybe so. I do remember that I found Heinlein a lot "lighter" in his approach to any dialectic. It's been more than a couple of decades since I have read either. It seems that I need a refresher!
  - ci5er 9y ago
    Here you mean "Manichean" to mean 'redemptive' in the moral-dualism sense? If not, what do you mean? (I want to make sure I am reading you as you intend)