{"id":4508,"date":"2022-06-01T16:59:25","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T21:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lfs.org\/blog\/?p=4508"},"modified":"2024-01-03T20:12:43","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T02:12:43","slug":"guess-who-what-world-famous-billionaire-reveals-hes-a-lifelong-sf-fan-and-counts-heinleins-most-libertarian-novel-among-his-favorites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/guess-who-what-world-famous-billionaire-reveals-hes-a-lifelong-sf-fan-and-counts-heinleins-most-libertarian-novel-among-his-favorites\/","title":{"rendered":"Guess who: What world-famous billionaire reveals he\u2019s a lifelong sf fan and counts Heinlein’s most libertarian novel among his favorites?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Guess what world-famous billionaire has revealed that Robert Heinlein\u2019s libertarian sf classic The Moon is a Harsh Mistress\u00a0<\/i>was his favorite novel while growing up?<\/p>\n

Hint: The billionaire praises the novel, one of the earliest and best known Prometheus Award winners, on his blog.<\/p>\n

“When I was a kid, I was obsessed with science fiction… The Moon is a Harsh Mistress<\/em> was a particular favorite,” he writes.<\/p>\n

(Make your guess before clicking on to the next page to see the answer…)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

No, it\u2019s not brash maverick Elon Musk (even though Musk admirably is one of the free-enterprise pioneers investing in the future of space exploration and expansion into our solar system and occasionally also takes some libertarian stands, such as favoring a culture that respects free speech and a free press.)<\/p>\n

And no, it\u2019s not Charles Koch – the libertarian billionaire who early on helped fund and provide seed money to the Cato Institute and other libertarian organizations in the late 1970s and 1980s, and who still admirably is principled enough to support the free market, even if it would mean ending various corporate-welfare government subsidies that happen to benefit his own company in the short run.<\/p>\n

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Bill Gates (Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But if you\u2019re third guess happens to be Bill Gates (no one\u2019s idea of a libertarian), you guessed correctly.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the full statement that Gates wrote recently on GatesNotes: The Blog of Bill Gates:<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a kid, I was obsessed with science fiction. Paul Allen and I would spend countless hours discussing Isaac Asimov\u2019s original Foundation <\/em>trilogy. I read every book by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert Heinlein. (The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress <\/em>was a particular favorite.) There was something so thrilling to me about these stories that pushed the limits of what was possible,\u201d Gates writes on his blog<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As I got older, I started reading a lot more non-fiction. I was still interested in books that explored the implications of innovation, but it felt more important to learn something about our real world along the way. Lately, though, I\u2019ve found myself drawn back to the kinds of books I would\u2019ve loved as a kid,” Gates wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Who knew that Gates loved Heinlein, and moreover was still unabashed about his youthful favorite that today he\u2019s still willing to praise Heinlein\u2019s Hugo- and Prometheus-winning classic sf novel about a libertarian revolution on the Moon?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Admittedly, Gates may not appreciate Heinlein\u2019s novel in precisely the way that LFS members and other libertarian sf fans do. (Check out William H. Stoddard’s insightful\u00a0Prometheus Blog appreciation<\/a> of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress\u00a0<\/i>to see how we view that sf classic.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Furthermore, given Gates\u2019 adult views endorsing something often akin to\u00a0 technocratic central planning, despite the many failures of government bureaucracies and their politicized anti-science distortions by various interests, it probably shouldn\u2019t surprise us that he also mentions Asimov\u2019s Foundation trilogy in the same breath.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Gates\u2019 well-known support for achieving various worthy and legitimate social goals (such as alleviating world-wide disease, hunger and poverty) through various transnational organizations, such as the World Health Organization or the United Nations, seems to parallel in some ways the Asimovian central-planning vision embodied in his Foundation novels.<\/p>\n

In some ways, both Asimov and Gates seem blind to the subtle and decentralized benefits of what Hayek described as the “spontaneous order” of the marketplace, which both sophisticated economic theory and history show as the salutary if inevitably messy consequence of millions of people socializing and trading through voluntary behavior – cooperation – to more effectively meet human needs and desires.<\/p>\n

Sadly, at least from his public statements and blog posts, Gates seems unfamiliar with the more sophisticated critiques of central planning outlined in detail in the books of F.A. Hayek and Thomas Sowell, to name two leading modern thinkers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Alternatively, to better grasp what\u2019s problematic about Asimov\u2019s otherwise entertaining sf classic, Gates might read Donald Kingsbury\u2019s Psychohistorical Crisis<\/i>,<\/a> the 2002 Prometheus Best Novel winner.<\/p>\n

Read LFS president William H. Stoddard\u2019s insightful Prometheus Blog appreciation<\/a> of that 2002 Prometheus Best Novel winner to better appreciate Kingsbury\u2019s persuasive implicit critique of the false assumptions that upon further reflection, seriously undercut the realism of Asimov\u2019s epic world-building saga.<\/p>\n

If only somehow, someone close to Gates could persuade him to start reading Kingsbury or Hayek and Sowell, then who knows?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Their books might start showing up on Gates\u2019 book blog, too, while his benevolent efforts to eliminate Third World diseases and promote better vaccines and a more effective response to future pandemics would be enhanced by his greater understanding of more civilized and less coercive or politicized strategies to achieve such worthy goals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

After all, Gates has previously been known to give a thumb\u2019s up on his blog to several non-fiction books written by libertarian thinkers or libertarian-influenced writers. Among the most notable: Matt Ridley\u2019s brilliant pro-market\u00a0The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves,\u00a0<\/i>Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler\u2019s Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think\u00a0<\/i>and Steven Pinker\u2019s\u00a0The Better Angels of Our Nature.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>All of the above are insightful, maverick books whose central insights illuminate and support the constellation of ideas and values associated with modern libertarianism – and are consistent with Hayek and Sowell’s rich insights as well.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, an upcoming Prometheus Blog post will report on how Gates has praised two other Prometheus-recognized novels – one a current Best Novel finalist and the other a more recent Best Novel winner.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n


\n<\/u><\/strong>* Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/strong>For a full list of winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 for the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced\u00a0Prometheus Awards page\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to the full set of published appreciation-reviews of past winners.<\/p>\n

* Read\u00a0\u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0an essay in the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/em>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

*\u00a0Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards,\u00a0join\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n

Libertarian futurists believe that culture matters! We understand that the arts and literature can be vital, and in some ways even more powerful than politics in the long run, by sparking innovation, better ideas, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other\u2019s rights and differences.<\/p>\n

Through recognizing the literature of liberty and the many different but complementary visions of a free future via the Prometheus Awards, the LFS hopes to help spread better visions of the future that help humanity overcome tyranny, slavery and war and achieve universal liberty and human rights and a better world (perhaps eventually, worlds) for all.<\/p>\n

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  Guess what world-famous billionaire has revealed that Robert Heinlein\u2019s libertarian sf classic The Moon is a Harsh Mistress\u00a0was his favorite novel while growing up? Hint: The billionaire praises the novel, one of the earliest and best known Prometheus Award winners, on his blog. “When I was a kid, I was obsessed with science fiction… … Continue reading Guess who: What world-famous billionaire reveals he\u2019s a lifelong sf fan and counts Heinlein’s most libertarian novel among his favorites?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,8,1860],"tags":[1563,1561,1562,917,1564,1567,567,1565,16,21,83,1566,1568],"class_list":["post-4508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essay","category-review","category-robert-heinlein","tag-bill-gates","tag-billionaire","tag-charles-koch","tag-elon-musk","tag-f-a-hayek","tag-foundation-trilogy","tag-isaac-asimov","tag-matt-ridley","tag-prometheus-award","tag-robert-heinlein","tag-the-moon-is-a-harsh-mistress","tag-the-rational-optimist","tag-thomas-sowell"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-1aI","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4508"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4651,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4508\/revisions\/4651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}