From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Fri Jul 12 2002 - 19:41:39 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, July 10, 2002, at 07:14 am, TT wrote:
>
>> Iím beginning to think that becoming mainstream may be a bad thing for
>> Transhumanity. It certainly seems to occupy a lot of debating time, but
>> what would the real advantages be? To be quite honest (and selfish) if H>
>> technology works and is of benefit to me I couldnít care less if it were
>> mainstream or not.
>
>
> I often wonder this myself. I know that we hope the masses will provide
> public opinion support and monetary support for our goals, but I don't
> really envision this happening. There seems to be a mindset that is
> very engrained in people to accept or not accept our ideas. I really
> don't know if people can be convinced if they aren't already.
As I have seen several people become convinced that weren't
already, I have an existence proof that predestination does not
govern acceptance of these ideas. You aren't claiming people
are incapable of changing their minds are you?
> I think
> mainstream science is already working on this stuff, mainstream business
> is already funding research, and mainstream militaries and governments
> are already evaluating potential scenarios using it. I don't think
> public opinion is necessary or will even be much of a factor when this
> stuff gets really close. Debating it this far in advance of its actual
> arrival seems unnecessary, and maybe even a waste of time.
>
If by this stuff you mean just the technology itself then I,
with reservations, agree. But the labs, government and military
are not the one's that will provide a unifying vision of what is
possible/desirable. Without that you will see hyper-tech
versions of same old same old imho.
> Do we really have to argue the copy question many decades in advance?
> Won't we know a lot more about the ramifications 30-50 years down the
> road? Do we really need to design anarchy governments for asteroid belt
> when we currently can't get out of low earth orbit? (The moon missions
Well, I agree with that one. We do argue some arcane points
that probably won't matter except to transhumans. And we do
have to take the next step right in front of us before we leap
across the lightyears.
> seem to be a fluke that we no longer can reproduce with today's
> equipment.)
huh?
> Existing scientists are trying to figure out how to make nanotubules
> more than a few millimeters. We are trying to figure out how to finance
> a space mission to our nearest neighbors. We are trying to figure out
> what the next step of computer will be now that we've revamped the
> Pentium chip a dozen times without getting new designs acceptable to the
> public. We can't even get our laptops to stop crashing every day, yet
Easy. Wipe Windows off the disk. Install Linux. Reboot for
the last time. :-)
- samantha
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