From: Waldemar Ingdahl (wingdahl@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Jul 07 2000 - 11:32:03 MDT
>From: "scerir" <scerir@libero.it>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>To: "extropians" <extropians@extropy.com>
>Subject: italian interest
>Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 16:46:47 +0200
>
>Gentlemen who wrote these (italian) pages
>http://erewhon.ticonuno.it/arch/rivi/artific/tecgno/arcip.htm
>http://delos.fantascienza.com/delos46/mitolog.html
>are telling me they are changing their mind, about extropism. Now they
>think that extropians are not a *sect* as Ansa (a sort of italian Reuters)
>announced many months ago (but I did not read this).Of course: they still
>do not *embrace the future* (the best known extropic motto, in Italy) and
>they do not believe in *omega-points* (the second best known extropic
>thing, in Italy).
>scerir
OK, good to see that their attitude has towards extropianism has improved,
at least. BTW, I don't believe in Omega- points either! I personally feel
that it is a part of transhumanism that should be rather downplayed because
it diverts the ideology's interest from the important parts, the analysis of
the present and strategies for the present. Transhumanism often falls into
the trap of discussing VERY remote technologies, while completely neglecting
the present. I think it is because, if we're discussing the present topics
like economics, philosophy, sociology etc come into the forefront. But those
are not topics that people in general discuss at all- they are so mired in
what is considered "practical" and "moral" today that transhumanists even
adopt the stasist point of view towards them (comes with the fact of a
hegemony being present in these topics). So you can here bizarre statements
like "I don't want any changes in politics and economics as of today, but I
think somehow we will have nanotech, but it shouldn't have any sociological
impact". This of course damages the credibility of transhumanism, asit is
unable to make a good analysis of the present and of the way to implement
the transhuman IDEOLOGY (of which the technological solutions are just a
minor part) in the future.
Kind of reminds me of a truck I saw in the US with two stickers on it. The
first one said "member of the NRA", the second said "support Clinton/ Gore".
Unfortunately it could also be an illustration of the same philosophical
errors that some transhumans commit.
>p.s.
>Note that Italy appreciated so much, during ' 60, the french catholic
>philosopher Teilhard de Chardin and his omega-point-human-deity !
Hmm, Sartre was also loved in Italy in the '60s. It was a very open time.
Sincerely,
Waldemar
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