From: Natasha Vita-More (natasha@natasha.cc)
Date: Mon Dec 31 2001 - 15:59:08 MST
At 05:50 PM 12/31/01 -0400, Randall Randall wrote:
(Why did you change the subject line?)
> > [Cryofan] wrote:
> > >>Since the Extropian movement is heavily invested in libertarian
> > >>philosophy,
> >
> > Faulty conjecture and bad memetic engineering. If some extropians are
> > Libertarian and others Republicans, some Democrats, some are a-political,
> > and still others non-party line thinkers, the above-statement is an
> > untenable generalization.
>
>Back when I first heard about extropians, one of the major attractions for
>me was the combination of transhumanism and libertarianism. In fact,
>that's how I thought of extropians -- as libertarian transhumanists.
Why? Just because some extropians are libertarian would you think that it
was a personality trait of all extropians? I think that it is essential
to realize that some ideas that are known to be intelligent have been
accepted and taken on by libertarians. This does not mean that they are
exclusively libertarian. They are simply smart ideas.
>I'm not sure what distinguishes extropy from plain transhumanism, if not
>advocacy of non-statism. Can someone help me out here?
Good question. Actually, basically nothing other than a word
"Extropy". Now, if we begin to unravel some of the history of how
transhumanism got stated you would learn that there were Upwinger
Transhumanists, Transhumanist Artists and other smaller groups of futurists
who felt aligned with the transhumanist futurism. But, really, the word
and ideas were first generated in the extropian community. The word
transhumanism came out of the extropian philosophy. Not the other way
around. However, FM-2030, wrote his view of what a transhuman is and I
think that his "ideology" was significantly transhumanist. There was no
political spin on transhumanism other than FM's views ideological globalism.
>In any case, cryofan didn't mention any parties, and in fact used
>"libertarian" (associated with the non-statist or minarchist belief system)
>rather than "Libertarian" (associated with the party, which is arguably
>minarchist, but certainly not non-statist).
His inference was pretty darn strong.
>By the way, I imagine that "a-political" could easily be used to describe
>libertarianism. :)
Sure. I guess so. Frankly, I think political parties are old world.
Natasha Vita-More
Founder, Transhumanist Arts
Art Director, Digital Design
http://www.natasha.cc http://www.extropic-art.com http://www.transhuman.org
"I'd rather be inebriated on a classic life than a 1996 classic Merlot."
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