ExtroBritannia - July meeting, London, Saturday July the 20th

From: estropico (estropico@virgilio.it)
Date: Mon Jul 15 2002 - 06:50:24 MDT


The next ExtroBritannia get-together is scheduled for Saturday the 20th
of July at 12 noon, at the basement cafe of Europe's largest bookshop
(Waterstone's in Piccadilly, London)

The plan is to have lunch chatting about whichever transhumanist subject pops
up (one of these is guaranteed to be What Next for ExtroBritannia, if our
previous meetings are any indication) and then to move on to the real subject
for this month: the well publicised Fukuyama-Stock debate
and, given that we have a much higher Future Shock Level than the general
public, we will also throw in the much more extropian Kurzweil-Stock debate.

>From Piccadilly Circus, the Waterstone' store is about 50 yards down
Piccadilly (on the left handside). Once inside take the stairs on the right,
down to the lower floor cafe'/restaurant: the cafe will be right in front of
you.

If this is your first meeting, I'll be the guy clearly displaying a copy of
Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual Machines" on the table I'll be sitting at. We
will then move to the restaurant for lunch (you'll see it at the back of the
cafe).

If are not interested in having lunch and you just want to come along for the
meeting, you can join us in the restaurant from about 1pm onward for coffee
and
mind-stretching debate (for details on the subject, see below).

The ExtroBritannia mailing list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extrobritannia

MAP:

http://www.multimap.com/clients/browse.cgi?client=amazon&local=0&GridE=529320
GridN=180474

For background reading, just follow these links:

FUKUYAMA-STOCK

http://reason.com/debate/eh-debate1.shtml

All this week, Francis Fukuyama (author of Our Posthuman Future) and Gregory
Stock (author of Redesigning Humans ) square off over whether we should allow
genetic and biological manipulations with the potential to alter human beings.

http://research.mednet.ucla.edu/pmts/redesign.htm

(this also includes an extract from the first chapter)
Forget worries about cloning people. In the future,
technological advances will bring far more meaningful and
controversial changes to our offspring, says Gregory Stock. As scientists
rapidly improve their ability to identify, screen, and manipulate genes,
people will want to protect their future children from diseases, help them
live longer, and even influence their looks and their abilities. Stock,
an expert on the implications of recent advances in reproductive biology,
clearly shows that neither
governments nor religious groups will be able to stop the coming trend of
choosing an embryo's genes.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374236437/ref%3Dpd%5Fsim%5Fbooks/002-
0848124-2336824
Reviews of Fukuyama's book (but no extracts)

KURZWEIL-STOCK

http://reason.com/rb/rb050102.shtml

The meeting featured a colorful debate on the relative importance of nanotech
and biotech between Ray Kurzweil and Gregory Stock. Kurzweil is an inventor
of note and the author of a number of books, including The Age of Spiritual
Machines. Stock is the director of the program on medicine, technology, and
society at UCLA, and author, most recently, of Redesigning Humans. Billed as
the "Debate of the
Decade: `BioFuture or MachineFuture?'" their discussion ranged from gee-whiz
gadgetry to the question that bedevils most human beings: "What is the
purpose of life?"

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0462.html

Arguments for a Green AND Gray Future
by Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil and Gregory Stock, Director, UCLA Program on Medicine,
Technology and Society, debated "BioFuture vs. MachineFuture" at the
Foresight Senior Associate Gathering, April 27, 2002. This is Ray Kurzweil's
presentation.

----
This message was posted by estropico to the Extropians 2002 board on ExI BBS.
<http://www.extropy.org/bbs/index.php?board=61;action=display;threadid=52466>


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