From: Eugene Leitl (Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Date: Tue Aug 07 2001 - 11:48:03 MDT
On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Aina & Bones wrote:
> Is Extropianism mainly for American's? How many Europeans are on this
Just for Americans? I doubt it. Time for a poll, off-list please.
> list and how much, if any, european philosophy is in your
> Extropianism?
Another reason to junk philosophy, if you can separate it into regions.
Is there an European vs. American astrophysics?
> How will the transhumanist movement deal with people's fears: the
> pessimism/realism that experience engenders? Will technology really
There are appeals to the ratio, and then, there's PR.
> change how people are or will people have to do that for themselves?
I think directing your own change is much preferrable to being shaped by
others, especially without your consent, or simply going extinct by virtue
of resisting change. (They don't like it? They can kiss my furry little
butt).
> The degree of optimism on this list concerning the future is
> definitely infectious and I'd really love it to be as e.g.. Mr.
> Broderick envisions but People have milked the meme concerning the
> power of science to improve the human condition to death.
I don't agree with that statement.
> The egg heads (no offense intended) have been saying that technology
> will solve this and that and remove this and that for centuries now.
> Technology has indeed developed the cures for many diseases and
> increased crop harvests etc. but most people don't get the benefit of
> it.
I don't agree with that statement either. Well, okay, you've got a
marginal point. We've got a planning, deployment and education problem.
> Will what most people get out of a time and technology that can
> produce diamond houses cheaply be a diamond bullet in the head? If not
> why?
Huh?
> Will Transhumanism become a sort of super technocratic society in
> which technologists develop technology only for themselves or can
> others join? Will it be the third word that matches: aristocracy,
> racism.......... transhumanism?
Everyone can participate in R&D of transhumanist relevance. Some of said
R&D is explicitly directed towards access to information easy, cheap, and
ubiquitous. Provided, people are willing, and the didactical part is
addressed. It will be interesting to see how the Simputer experiment will
fare.
> After all this biotech superman thing is basically a child of National
> Socialism. Sure, now one can in theory claim that with gene
> manipulation even defectives CAN be healed. WILL they be healed?
Heilt Hitler, then. And please no 'gene manipulation, he hates that.
> Are the words can and should synonyms?
Is there a particular reason why you must wax rhetorical on us?
> Over the time (years) that I have been a member of this list I have,
> from time to time, noticed what I (perhaps wrongly) interpret to be
> disdain for poor/uneducated/less intelligent people in many postings
> so I wonder Will everybody get a better body or will there be a races
> of super humans and slave race that serve them?
How do you serve a god? You don't. You can't. There's nothing you can
offer a god. So serve yourself, and become a god. It makes things much
easier for everybody.
> What is to stop Transhumanism from becoming the scientific arm of
> future dictatorships?
Educating people about risks of certain technologies, and necessity to
keep current. It helps to be persuasive.
> Can Libertarianism be summed up like this: all the freedom, justice,
> health and life that money can buy. If so how does that change things
> from the way they are now?
Have fun erecting your straw men.
> Is or will Transhumanism be nothing more than intellectual confusion,
> moral imbecility, and willful ugliness elaborated into a
> self-conscious ideology: the worship of wealth, power, novelty and
> machinery? Will it become the ultimate expression of what many call a
> culture less and materialist America: a sort of burger and coke
> religion?
You're making it sound as if we had a choice.
> Must Transhumanism demand spiritual pathology. Obviously not since Mr.
Hey! Some of us are naturally weird, and like it that way.
> Broderick seems to allow for something else, as it were, but how many
> transhumans can make allowances for that which they cannot see?
>
> For me the ends justify the means but it seems that in Transhumanism
> the means is the end. Is this a fair judgment?
More puzzlement ensues. I think J.R.'s condition is catching.
> There are those who say that Libertarians and individualists are most
> likely to be solely concerned with their own egotistical and
> Narcissistic gratification. Since there are a few here on the list I
> ask would you refute this claim and how/why?
There's a difference between stupidly selfish, and rationally selfish.
Being dumb hurts you, and others, so don't.
> How would a Transhumanist egalitarian/collectivist effort express
> itself? Would they go for a Borg type society as in Star Trekk?
I expect diversity. I hope reality will do me a favour, and concur.
> Why not find ways of extending the use of our already existing brains
> instead of making new ones? If the mind can work outside of the human
It is rather difficult trying to patch a system which is falling apart
before your eyes, and has not been designed to be patchable with the
current flavour of tech. So, at some point a redesign is in order.
> body why go for any form of containment at all? Is it possible to
> exist without limits?
No idea. What was the critical angel density ceilidh on a pin, again?
> Since our instincts and emotions are our driving forces if we insulate
> ourselves from them or get rid of them what will our motivating force
> be?
Hey! Hands off from my limbic system. One of them "like" things happens to
"like" "like", like.
> Are people in general in greater danger of being mistreated by
> transhumans/extropians than, white people are of being mistreated by
> negroes?
It is not smart to delibertely shun power, when it is being thrust your
way. Somebody is not going to refuse. Will you bet that that somebody is
nice, in your sense?
> In attempting to become more than human will we become less?
Who cares.
> Don't get me wrong. I'm not against science and technology. I'd
> install a bionic leg today if I could -_- It's just that I have lived
A bionic leg? Only if it's superior.
> a lot of my life in what you would call primitive circumstances and
> have taken a long time to learn about all the different stuff you guys
> talk about here.
What do you call primitive circumstances? Inquiring minds want to know.
> In reading up I have found questions which have bothered me but I did
> not want to trouble you all with my lack of knowledge/understanding.
> However since some people on this list seriously wanted to discuss
> whether or not white people are nicer than black people I figured that
> my questions won't be the most stupid ever brought up on the list.
>
> So, as the progress of technology fuels its own acceleration and
> rushes us into the future at exponential speed will we vanish up our
> own anuses?
Also an event horizont, of sorts.
-- Eugen* Leitl leitl
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