Rereading *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress*

Yes, by Robert A. Heinlein.  I wasn’t expecting too much from this one, which I last read at age 13.  Published in 1966, it nonetheless holds up very well and in fact has aged gracefully.  It is surprisingly feminist, not at all dewey-eyed about actual rebellion, does not sound antiquated in its tech issues (e.g., malicious AI), has China as central to geopolitics and circa 2076 Greater China controls most of southeast Asia, and the book is full of economics and public choice.  TANSTAAFL is coined, but when understood as a section heading it is actually a Burkean slogan, not a libertarian or Friedmanite idea.  The lunar rebellion does not achieve independence easily or by keeping its previous friendly nature, nor does Earth receive those “grain shipments” gratis, so to speak.  Burke is the Straussian upshot of the whole book — beware societies based on new principles!  This is also perhaps the best novel for understanding the logic of a future conflict with North Korea, furthermore Catalonians should read it too.  Most of all, I recall upon my reread that this book was my very first exposure to game-theoretic reasoning.

NB: The “character” of Adam Selene is poking fun at H.G. Wells’s lunar Selenites, from The First Man in the Moon, arguably suggesting they descended from earlier human settlers.

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