[The email below is my response to a former member of MoreLife Yahoo
who took the time to reply to our unsubscribe query - an email
automatically sent to anyone who unsubscribes. (There have been
relatively few unsubscriptions in the almost 34 months since the
group was started.) Since the person did not choose to resubscribe
and post his/her message publicly as my reply encouraged, I am doing
so as I wrote I would. **Kitty]

[The comments which I have inserted below within Kitty's reply email were not
part of the original of that email. --Paul]


Hello [Deleted],

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [Deleted]
> Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 12:05 PM
> To: 'morelife Moderator'
> Subject: RE: File - unsubquery
>
>
>
> Dear Kitty,
>
> I recently heard about you through my very good friend [deleted],
> so I looked up your website and subscribed to your group.
>
> While I am mostly in agreement with your views and activities, I
> did not encounter sufficient new information to make it worth my
> while to spend time on this every day.

Since you don't say directly which "views and activities" you
are "mostly in agreement with" - MoreLife, as chiefly life-
extension, or the Self-Sovereign Individual Project, philosophical
based on the concepts in its fundamental essay on Social Meta-Needs -
I am somewhat hampered to respond to your comment that there was
not "sufficient new information to make it worth my while to spend
time on this every day". The purpose of the Yahoo group is for
readers of the websites to bring forth questions and comments
regarding its contents. Paul and I do not use the Yahoo group as an
alternative to the website; only on rare occasions do we initiate
any messages ourselves and then usually to bring attention to a new
and/or updated website features. Time spent on the Yahoo group is of
course a purely individual choice and can be entirely at a member's
discretion by selecting Special Notices or No Email as the message
delivery options. In that way, the ability to reply to any message
is always immediately possible when the member reads it in the
archives. With respect to your phrase "every day" this is certainly
not necessary because messages are not posted every day. You could
easily monitor it using a few minutes once per week to see if
something of interest to you has been posted. In addition, it is up
to the members of the group to make it of interest, by posting
interesting messages to it.


>
> Also, I was disappointed in what I perceive to be a narrow
> understanding of the "value for value" principle. I very strongly
> and deeply support the principle of value for value, as well as the
> related principle of voluntary community. In fact, I have spent
> much of my life deepening my understanding of these principles and
> seeking to find ways to move society to greater equity,
> voluntarism, and freedom.

[As I make clear in many places within my writings within the Self-Sovereign
Individual Project (SelfSIP), one must be very careful to clearly and
consistently define both "voluntarism" and "freedom", particularly taking care
to be sure that such definitions can hold for all people at one and the same
time (ie. are compossible). As for "equity", this word is rife with various
meanings and inconsistencies. Any consideration of human nature shows clearly
that humans are not equal. What is needed in this world is *justice* (where each
person gets precisely what he earns, no more and no less), not equity. Anything
else will be incompatible with true voluntarism and maximal freedom. --Paul]


> (Indeed, after many less-than-viable
> ideas on how to do this, I recently developed what I believe to be
> a realistic mechanism to fairly rapidly move a society to greater
> freedom and prosperity.)

[If this is available to read, I would be interested to do so. A critique of
each other's work would be valuable to both of us. --Paul]


>
> However, I understand egoism and voluntary community from a wider,
> more long-range perspective that allows for benevolent actions now
> that are only rewarded later (and not necessarily by the original
> recipient of my benevolence).

[If you read what I have written (particularly in my essay "Social Meta-Needs: A
New Basis for Optimal Human Interaction" at
http://selfsip.org/fundamentals/socialmetaneeds.html), you will understand that
my system fully embraces such a long range view of return of benefit from one's
actions. However, the problem with current society is that people are not
thinking that way at all. Far too many of them are convinced that their best
interest lies in getting whatever benefits they can for as little outlay of
resources as possible. Therefore, the methods that I would employ within a group
of Freemen (as defined within SelfSIP) cannot unfortunately be the same as the
methods that I must employ here and now in our current society. If I employed
those ultimate fully voluntaristic methods, then I would very soon have no
resources left for myself and I would die. This is very similar to the fact that
I cannot simply go around right now defying all the government laws with which I
do not agree. I must pick and choose very carefully and use subterfuges in any
such actions. --Paul]


> When we watch a three-year old grasp
> "selfishly" for what they impulsively want, or lash out
> impulsively at the very person who is their caregiver, we
> understand that the three-year old is acting from a limited
> understanding of what constitutes their self-interest. As the
> child grows in its understanding of the inordinately complex web
> of cause-effect relationships, it gradually expands its
> understanding of what constitutes self-interested action, and
> realizes that certain actions that may seem "unselfish" when
> viewed without reflection, are actually highly evolved forms of
> long-range selfish action.

[This is all very true, but I don't see how it applies to Kitty or I or anything
we have said or done. In fact, you are preaching to the converted, me, likely
someone who understood these ideas very clearly long before you did. The only
comment I will make is that what you have described is not nearly so effectively
accomplished in our current society as it was even 50 years ago. Children are
far too protected from learning the negative effects of their narrowly selfish
actions and discovering the benefits of thinking long-range. --Paul]


> This is the import of David Kelley's
> excellent monograph "Unrugged Individualism: The Selfish Basis of
> Benevolence".

[[The introduction to this monograph can be found at:
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/articles/dkelley_intro-unrugged-individualism.a\
sp
--Paul]

> I hope this sheds light on why I unsubscribed.

[I am sorry, but I fail to see how this monograph (which from the introduction,
I am in major agreement) applies to anything that Kitty or I have stated or
done. All that I can think is that you are confusing the methods that would be
applicable in a truly free society of rational individuals and those that
unfortunately must be used in our current society if one is to remain alive. As
I have stated many times in many places, one of the most unfortunate
consequences of current society is that it is truly impossible to be a fully
virtuous person and lead a fully moral life. In order to continue to have any
life of quality and quantity (ie. not live as a hermit in the wasteland) one is
forced to constantly do things that are not of optimal benefit for both oneself
and others (such as paying taxes, for example). All that one can do is to try
one's best to minimize such harm, to never sanction the need for it, and to
maximize one's chances to alter things so one's choices will become more and
more virtuous and non-harming in the future. --Paul]


Your expressed views above on the principle of value for value and
its relationship to egoism and voluntary community is one that would
well serve the readers of MoreLife Yahoo as a post rather than as a
private response to my automatic unsubscribe query email. These are
the type of comments that Paul and I have requested for the Self-
Sovereign Individual Project on each of its pages and on the front
page of MoreLife Yahoo itself.

We would like to have you post your comments above - as is or
further developed - to MoreLife Yahoo so that others can benefit
from the discussion. You write about having spent considerable time
seeking to find ways "to move society to greater equity,
voluntarism, and freedom"; taking the opportunity to publicly
comment on Paul's and my ideas to do similarly (except that justice
replaces "equity") should be of benefit to you in this effort. If
you choose not to rejoin and post a message yourself, I will copy
the pertinent portions of it myself (eliminating personal
identifying information) and post it as a response received to my
automatic unsubscribe questionnaire. Since the archives are public,
anyone will be able to read it and the comments Paul and I make to
it.


>
> Best wishes,
>
> [Deleted]
> [Deleted]
>

Hoping you will reconsider and take the opportunity to contribute
your thoughts publicly. Private ideas - those kept to oneself - have
no chance to make an impact on others; the wider the audience, the
greater the possibility for positive effect.

**Kitty Antonik Wakfer

MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org
Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org
Rational freedom by self-sovereignty & social contracting