Stupididty is not a crime...(Heinlein)

by upside/down 11 Replies latest social entertainment

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  upside/down

  Robert Heinlein Once said taht " Stupidity is not a crime, however, it is often fatal." He also said lots of other cool stuff.

  I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

  I never learned from a man who agreed with me.

  A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the Lord in vain - then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system?

  An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life

  It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so

  Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

  Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated of nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing - with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for the second and third place.

  One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.

  Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful - just stupid).
  
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  Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything

  When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives

  Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again

  I found this "amusing"...hope you enjoyed it.

  This may be a repost of someones....(sorry)...but I enjoyed it...hope you do to. u/d
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  Big Dog

  Heinlein was the best, I read everyone of his books growing up. The man definitely had some interesting opinions.
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  ackack

  Oh Heinlein, how i love you so. aparently the guy who writes with Joss Whedon is doing a movie adaptation of "Moon is a Harsh Mistress". That should be a good time.

  Wouldn't mind seeing a film version of "Stranger from a Strange Land" but it would undoubtebly be X rated. :) Great book though.

  ackack
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  Big Dog

  That is so cool, the Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of my favorites of his, I had no idea they were making it into a movie. I hope they do a good job with it, that could be an excellent flick.
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  ackack

  Here is a relevant article.
  http://www.ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=1316

  the heinlein related portions...

  iF MAGAZINE: What’s next for you?

  MINEAR: I’m doing another pass at MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS [an adaptation of the Robert Heinlein sci-fi novel]. It’s for producers David Hayman and Mike Medavoy. I did a pass of that last year, turned it in and they had some notes and they came to me this year and we talked about what the next pass would be. They were giving me their notes and what they were saying, “maybe you can do this, or do that,” and in my infinite wisdom said, “I have an idea, why don’t I do a whole new version. Why don’t I throw this out and start over.” They were like “you would do that?” And I’m like “yeah,” so that’s what I’m getting ready to do now.

  iF MAGAZINE: Is it hard to adapt Heinlein?

  MINEAR: Yes. Maybe HAVE SPACESUIT AND TRAVEL, which is really about that one guy, maybe that would be easier, but this is about a revolution. It’s big and it has a lot of really complex political ideas. It’s hard in that respect. How do you personalize this? There’s a lot of talking in the book – theoretical talking about Libertarian ideals and political structure and that sort of thing – how do you take that and make it immediate and dramatic and emotional? How do you say that stuff through scenes and action, as opposed to characters sitting around and having a conversation? That’s difficult. The other thing that is difficult is that there is also a certain amount of psychological pressure that I am trying to remove from myself when you’re adapting something like Heinlein. This book is so important to so many people and you don’t want to f*ck it up. So there’s that. You want to keep true to spirit of it, and you want to take this enormously long book, that takes place over a long period of time and try to do a version of it that will play for two hours on a movie screen. The other thing is to make sure the powers that be in Hollywood don’t force you to turn it into some Marxist screed on socialism, when Heinlein was a Libertarian and it’s about free-market capitalism. You want to try and not make it about an evil corporation. That’s the trick.

  iF MAGAZINE: It’s just in the script-stage? No official greenlight yet?

  MINEAR: Exactly. What they want to do is take it out to big name directors and they’ve named a couple of directors and it would be awesome if that happened. The people who optioned this book – Mike Medavoy and David Hayman – optioned it because they liked the book and the ideas are inspiring particularly the idea of retelling the American Revolution from this sci-fi point of view.

  ackack
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  Ellie

  OK, call me stupid if you wish, but who is Heinlein?
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  upside/down

  Google it and find out...

  u/d
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  TD

  Robert Heinlein was an American writer. His chosen genre was science fiction, but he didn't write it for its own sake. In my opinion, he often used it as a vehicle to explore religious, social and political questions, and his characters were often metaphors for other things.

  Some of these questions include; Why does God deserve to be God? (Job A Comedy of Justice) What is freedom? (Citizen of the Galaxy) When is it moral for people to use force as a group? (Starship Troopers)

  Heinlein was the penultimate libertarian -- a "rational anarchist." His books sometimes dealt with the morality of revolution (Between Planets, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) the sacredness of free will (The Puppet Masters) and the evil of slavery (Farnham's Freehold, Citizen of the Galaxy)
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  Cognitive_Dissident

  Wow, the only thing I ever read by Heinlein was Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, and that was when I was like ten or eleven. I think I'll have to check out some of his other books now.
  
  CD
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  Ellie

  Sounds interesting, thanks for the info TD.