Agre takes on conservatism

After a long silence, the incomparable Phil Agre takes on conservatism in his latest post to the Red Rock Eater mailing list titled "What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?".

Interestingly, his attack on conservatism strongly follows the lines of his fundamental issue with Good Old Fashioned AI (GOFAI) -- hierarchy.By treating 'conservatism' as being equivalent to aristocracy and hence to a worldview biased towards a hierarchical conception of society, his GOFAI-related arguments carry over quite smoothly. However, he presents the correspondence between conservatism and aristocracy as an obvious given rather than presenting an argument as to why this is the case. This does not seem to be self-evident.