From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Thu Jan 06 2000 - 01:59:13 MST
I'm not a psychologist, but it strikes me as possible that the recent
mainstreaming of certain extropian topics (like uploading) on prime time
television sort of takes the edge of extropianism, as it were. We're no
longer cutting-edge. We're not all that 'different' anymore. We're
geeks, with far out ideas, but there's tolerance for geeks now. Perhaps
creation of enemies lists can reinforce an us vs. them dichotomy,
letting us feel special and apart again.
Now there's a list of specific organizations opposed to extropian ideas.
If I was leading such an organization, this would be ideal! The first
thing I'd do, is contact the other organizations on the list, inform
them of the list, and enlist their help in opposing this group of
radicals who oppose God, country, nature, government, family values, and
the American way.
Then, I would get infiltrators to subscribe to the mailing lists.
Now, I believe, that almost anyone who is exposed to the tremendous
ideas I've read on this list would eventually become more expansive in
their thinking, more questioning of their held ideas about God,
goverment, whatever, more libertarian. But now, an infiltrator might
avoid that by posting and inciting only enemies list commentary: " Don't
like Greenpeace? Here's their mailing address. Here's a map to Rifkin's
house. Here's where the Friends of the Earth's chairman's kids go to
school, look, I have photos.... You know, if Rifkin is delaying the
singularity, he's killing 150K people every hour, he's more dangerous
than Hitler and Stalin put together, isn't that so? " Or how about, "
why aren't you out saving the world instead of eating that sandwich??
50K people will die while you eat it, get out there and save them!!!! "
That doesn't work for me folks. This is how I see it:
This is the way the world is.
Things do get better, all the time, maybe just not as fast as I'd like.
I do what I can.
Don't ask me to hate, too.
Oh, and my sincere regrets to the tens of thousands of people who died
while I was writing this, instead of doing my work.
Thanks,
-Mike
-- ====================================================================== Michael Wiik Principal Messagenet Communications Research Washington DC Area Internet and WWW Consultants http://messagenet.com mwiik@messagenet.com ======================================================================
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