From: Paul McDermott (bandwidthboy@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Fri Aug 16 2002 - 07:00:03 MDT
Referring purely to your reflection on sharing the ideas of Moravec et al
with others, I can totally relate. I first snagged a copy of "Mind Children"
around 1992 or so, and was mind-boggled by it. I was doing an education
degree at the time, and I just wanted to tell people about the ideas within
the book, their ramifications for our chosen field of study, etc etc. Most
already thought I was a little peculiar given my enthusiasm for sf, and I
think this pretty much gave them the rubber stamp. It was so frustrating!
:-) Similarly, trying to get interest from faculty was a bit of a mission
impossible, though I'd happily have done postgrad research in it had
supervision been available.
Amusingly (or not) my last teaching job saw me wind up going to a work
social that involved a dinner and a musical. I slept through the musical,
but the dinner was potentially interesting. Alas, when I trotted out the
ideas of Moravec et al to my colleagues and sketched out some obvious
implications for our profession, I got a very cool reception. I don't know
whether I was saddened more by their certainty (that such stuff was neither
important or likely) or their lack of curiosity.
A twist that came some time later resulted in me giving a class for a bunch
of science students ostensibly as a guest lecturer, on of all things,
cryonics. It seemed a new teacher turned up who was interested in doing
things differently, and a pal put my name forward as a good person to tap
for assistance. I don't know if I sold any bananas, no followup was
possible. But I gave the kids enough literature to take home and peruse, and
a thick pile of resources for their teacher to have on hand for next time. I
also lent out a copy of "Engines of Creation" to a student. She was
fascinated (weren't we all?) but her ex-chemist dad was something of a wet
blanket. I think I may have let her take home "Nanosystems" but I don't know
if it did any good. Like my colleagues, I think he'd contracted a hardening
of the orthodoxies... I came across much the same sort of thing -- including
a surprisingly open (but perhaps ill-considered) antipathy to technology --
at the place I picked up some computer hardware and software skills. Of
course it's all anecdotal, but anyway... :-)
I think the idea of public lectures on such extropic/transhumanist topics
would be helpful. Has this been attempted before by anyone here, and if so
how did it go? Is there anywhere that is doing such things on a regular
basis?
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
[mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Michael Wiik
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2002 10:05 PM
To: extropians@extropy.org
Subject: Re:American Education (was: Re: Nature as Advertisement)
lcorbin@tsoft.com once again made one of his trademark valuable
contributions
to this thread with his incisive riposte:
> Gigantic indoctrination machine? Robbing people of their
children? Is he from Earth?
Perhaps, like myself, various extropians have been asked this of themselves
when expounding some of the ideas discussed in this forum. In my experience,
such reactions were common when (for example) I tried to discuss ideas from
Drexler's _Engines of Creation_ and Moravec's _Mind Children_ to colleagues
in
the late 80's, long before I had heard of extropy. (I stumbled onto both
books
in (iirc) 1986 at a downtown bookstore, was unable to afford them both,
bought
the Drexler and went back next week for the Moravec. Perhaps other
extropians
can understand my excitement at this exposure to what was then (at least
among
my colleagues and friends) extremely radical ideas, as well as my
frustration
in getting reactions similar to Mr Corbin's statement above when I tried to
talk about such. A frustration that continued till I found like-minded
folks,
like those on this list.
But I digress.
As to Gatto, maybe he's from Prussia. Perhaps Gatto's theory would be less
threatening if we examined first a Prussian model for society instead of
simplistically writing off Gatto as another wacko conspiracy theorist, a
view
Mr Corbin continues to harp.
I noted previously that I thought my summary wasn't all that great. And that
it lacked key information as to the 'why' of events in american educational
theory and practice. Chapter 7 of the Gatto book is all about Prussian
history
and their movement towards a 'administrative utopia'. Chapter 7 is a quick
read and can be found here:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/7a.htm
I suggest that those interested read the chapter before reading Mr Corbin's
inevitable reply, which it seems to me (based on experience with his
debating
style so far), will involve picking out the most volatile sentence from this
chapter, strip it of all context, and twist it to use as yet more evidence
that Gatto is a wacko conspiracy theorist. (Reviewing Robert Anton Wilson's
essay on 'The Thinker and the Prover' in _Prometheus Rising_ may also help
in
parsing whatever Mr Corbin will say next.)
Thanks, -Mike
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