Hello Steemit Community!
Well, hasn't this project grown! I remember when Steemit was just something a few anarchists were jumping on, and posting a few test pieces. But now, look at you! All adult and vibrant with content. Impressive!
My name is Robert Hirsch. I'm a 49 year old man who is in the process of having his life undergoing a pretty radical shift, for me at least. You can still meet 40 year old Robert on the internet. He is a college educated liberal, with a Ph.D from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He followed a somewhat atypical path for an engineer, but not a revolutionary one by any means. He started his career at Pratt and Whitney, a jet engine company, and got scared off of engineering as it was so corporate, so banal, with lots of paperwork.
So I went to go work to make creatures for movies in Hollywood. I worked on a few films like Radio Flyer, Hook and a few other ones, but after about 2 years of living in LA, I realized only a few people were getting rich doing that, and I left to pursue more degrees. I started RPI in 1986 and finally left in 1998 to start my own company, which ultimately failed. We were designing GPS training watches, but couldn't get around the patent landscape.
I then began my career in alternative energy, mostly focusing on fuel cells and electrochemical processes, I field I mostly left just 2 years ago.
You can get a good feel for 40 year old Robert Hirsch at his old blog.
Debunking wireless scares
Debunking claims about fMRI
Debunking claims about ancient Chinese medicine
Those are links to some of my more popular posts. Yeah, I was a liberal "skeptic". But check this one out, it's relevance will become important in a second.
This is me decrying that libertarianism is bullshit
So, here is where contemporary Robert began. I got all pissed off at Facebook.
It turns out that in September of 2011, Google+ recently came out, and I was looking for a switch. It had a nice feature where it was easy to find people with similar interests. I was interested in aquaponics and I pulled in a circle of 400+ people who had an interest in it...
Who the fuck are all these crazy, gun toting, nut bags who want to get rid of government and keep saying "Taxation is Theft"?! Who would build the roads? How would the police and fire departments get paid for? What's wrong with these people? Don't they know that gun violence is rampant in america?
Yeah, I was one of them. Big time. So it became my mission to sort them out, help them see the light about how government is a greater good, and how, if we work together, we can do great things like get to mars, or eliminate poverty.
But instead, a few of the anarchists I was talking to, took the time to actually explain things to me. Slowly, sometimes starting from first principles. And slowly, over a couple of years... I changed. I saw it from their side. I could explain self ownership. I could explain positive and negative rights. Soon I would consider myself a libertarian...and then something happened that fully codified my change
I no longer felt weird calling myself an anarchist, and am now totally compfortable explaining the position to others.
But along with this major worldview change, other things had to change too. In fact, I was extremely worried that my relationship to my wonderful wife would get damaged. We have two kids, so that would have affected them too. But much to my amazement and joy, I think our relationship got stronger, we understand each other and communicate better because she has always been awesome and now I have learned that individual relationships are far more important than ones that are created through a system.
I now have more interests that pin me to the earth and the people. We are finally implementing aquaponics systems. I'm interested in decentralized currencies, self defense including guns, and so forth.
and we are leaving the country, the USA, where I have been or 49 years.
So, what am I doing here on Steemit? I wont be blogging again. There are plenty of minds here who cover things better than I ever would. No, instead I think I am going to use it to try to help me with my new career, writing. I'm currently trying to move from engineering to writing. Its speculative fiction for the most part. Hopefully you will come along and enjoy my stories. I'll be posting chapters here, for free. Feel free to comment, tell me how you feel about it and so forth.
I have a couple of stories out there in the steampunk genre
Clash of the Fey
Fizzie Finds a Friend
I also have a science fiction story in a libertarian anthology that George Donnelly put together
Defiant, She Advanced
And I have a new one coming out soon, my first full novel. Hopefully there will be many more and you will join me on this journey.