XPost: talk.politics.libertarian, alt.anarchism, alt.society.anarchy   
   From: anarcissie@gmail.com   
      
   David Friedman :   
   > ...   
   > It sounds as though what you remember may not have a very close   
   > connection to what's in the book--not surprising if your memory is based   
   > on reading part of the book a very long time ago. Reardon Metal is   
   > something more than just one more alloy, and I'm not sure what "the   
   > Great Leader is still leading the charge" means.   
      
   Reardon metal, as I recall, had unusual properties, but   
   it was still just _metal_.  It didn't cause time warps   
   or fly through space on its own or think.  If I wrote   
   an novel about a new kind of metal I would think of it   
   as an industrial romance, like _Soul_Of_A_New_   
   _Machine_ only of course fictional, but not science   
   fiction, of which I demand greater weirdness.   
      
   The great leader is Galt, I guess.  Someone was kind   
   enough to publish his peroration under this subject.   
   But once people even knew you _could_ build an engine   
   like that, they'd be popping up all over the place, so   
   he wouldn't have to come out of his Gulch, or at least   
   not for very long.    And having a Gulch residence   
   might be a good thing, since with such a radical   
   change, the existing social order would fall apart,   
   etc.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)