From: Justin Corwin (thesweetestdream@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Dec 11 2000 - 01:53:21 MST
i hesitate to enter the ring of fire that is extropian discussion, so i will
do it by initiating what i would hope is a new thread.
i have followed with great interest all traffic on this list for nearly two
weeks, prior to my first posting. the extropian idea, and more grandly, the
positive, rational, scientific, wholistic idea that this list embraces, is
very seductive to me. it seems i have found a forum for such discussion and
query.
i am, a little impressed, overly-so, perhaps, by the population of this
list. intellegentsia, authors, tenured faculty, researchers into computer
theory, artists, and i.
and who am i? well, i'm not really anyone. a student, certainly, though a
poor one. i just managed to graduate high school, limping painfully through
the gates to college, where my first semester has proven to be a rousing
failure in study, integration, and grading. i'm an audience for authors and
posters, and a generalist without any real expertise to point to. i haven't
even centered on one particular job type, floating, instead through the fray
of disconnected part time work that is the life of a statistical "youth".
my touted sense of "identity" is more due to the requirements of assignments
and social interaction than that of real feeling of belonging or ownership.
it is inspiring to me that ideas and the humble device of free
messaging(provided gratefully to me by hotmail since prior their microsoft
buyout) might bridge and provide a sort of informational social mobility
between myself and such (to my mind) successful persons.
i realize this all sounds very fatous and self-effacing, but i must first
get through my own reactions to the extropian thought i've been exposed to,
before i can begin to contribute. or so it seems to me.
the point, i believe, is that we need not be limited to as we are. i am self
aware. so, being self aware, i may, at will, attempt to change myself. i
might lift weights to give myself a pleasing shape, and joyful strength, or
study acrobatics, and learn the pleasure of cheating gravity and common
sense. i also might study, or practice, and become more organized and wise.
i can also surround myself with devices and strategems to increase my
efficiency, and speed my input and output. i might also change myself
physically. build myself a faster mind, or give myself another sense(perhaps
sonar, or a gps sense)
or live forever.
this is an inspiring, and positive notion. one that i am quite new to. but
one that i would desperately believe, because it provides me a way out of
what i see as our(humanity's) trap we have built. we have become the weak
link in our own creation. no longer is technology, or food, or population,
or resources the limiting factor in our development. it is our own inablity
to accept our development. technology is delayed because of public reaction,
we interact so slowly with our computers that we become frustrated with
them. fundamentalists oppose medical technology, and we ourselves are
unable to conceptualize greater uses for our near magical technology, simply
because we are standing by our biases of what technology should be.
computers get faster and for what? to play games? type papers with prettier
interfaces? fifty years since world war two, and the greatest advance in
military technology is reliability and rate of fire in firearms that project
lead bullets. we sent a man to the moon with computers that my optical mouse
would sneer at in processor power. we have computers that multiply millions
of vectors in seconds, and we struggle to keep ourselves in check. the
function of government is to keep ourselves from self destructing, much less
accomplishing anything.
we have looped ourselves. the answer is not just technology, but a
technological self awareness. and the ability to change, that this self
awareness brings.
i realise that this is a highly technical list. but i know that you agree
with me, when i say that there are many ways just to improve your biological
mind that people ignore. news stories about the Mozart effect, the power of
visualization, daily mental gymnastics, mathmatical synergy in almost every
subject, and meta-programming go quietly in to the night, without a whisper
from our people. mental abilities are given a "god-given" stamp, and it is
assumed that if it doesn't come easy, you weren't meant to do it.
worse, we become a nation of obese, self-loathing consumers. the standard of
beauty becomes more and more stratified, as the average human becomes more
mediocre and unchallanged.
if we can't even imagine maxing out the capabilities of our biological
bodies, what hope to we have of replacing or augmenting them, the masses may
well ask us. much less evolving into beings with significantly different
mindscapes and goal structures?
into this, the extropian principle.
we will be greater, at all costs. augmentar!
there, is a toast i can drink to.
but my question remains. what of us? (i for the purposes of this point out
that i am far closer to the masses than the post-human, with my
self-limiting mindsets, and dim horizons) i am a person who is trapped by my
thought-processes and mindsets, yes, but i am trapped nonetheless.
how will you help me, and my friends like me? what is it that the future
offers me, and you who see it, and lust after it so keenly?
i have heard you call yourself post-human, but i am just a young man. not
even a very clever one.
how do we get from here to there?
what is the bridge that i am missing?
i realize this isn't very clear, and very long and boring. but if someone
could struggle through it, and show me what it is, and where the road
starts, i would be grateful.
justin
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