From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@ocean.com.au)
Date: Sun Nov 24 2002 - 17:39:07 MST
MessageHi Mez,
Welcome.
Regarding the user friendly, computer aided molecular design. Great stuff! And right on the critical path. More strength to your arm.
Regards,
Brett
----- Original Message -----
From: Ramez Naam
To: extropians@extropy.org
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 6:14 AM
Subject: (re)introduction: Ramez Naam
Hello.
I've been a lurker on this list for about 6 years now, and have delurked occasionally, but have never had sufficient free time to really engage in conversations here.
I thought it high time that I delurk again and give active correspondence another shot.
First, I'd like to say that this list has been a tremendous resource for me. While it has its occasional signal / noise problems, there is some amazingly high quality signal. So to all you posters that have educated me over the years, thank you.
Now, who am I?
My name is Ramez Naam. My friends call me "mez". I'm a US citizen residing in Seattle, WA. I was born in Cairo, Egypt and immigrated to the US with my parents at the age of 3. I spent several years at a major software company located just outside of Seattle leading the design and development of software products used by 10s of millions of people - specifically Outlook and Internet Explorer. I realize that my former employer is the source of some controversy in a number of online communities. I'm comfortable with that, as I am with my contribution to the world through my work on those products. Ask me sometime and I'll tell you what I'd do differently if I had to do it over again, and what I'd keep exactly the same.
More recently I've been running a small nanotechnology software startup - our aim is to make computer aided molecular design user friendly enough for the average bench chemist, physicist, or chemical engineer. For those of you not familiar with the field of computer aided molecular design / computational chemistry / molecular modeling, let's just say that it's currently a mess, which we believe we have the opportunity to help clarify.
I'm also currently working on a book with the working title "More Than Human: Technology and the Future of Mankind". The thesis of the book is that it is a fundamental part of human nature to seek to improve ourselves and our offspring, and as such, we should welcome technologies such as intelligence augmentation, lifespan extension, stem cells, cloning, genetic engineering, and brain computer interfaces, as they provide very promising paths to the self- and offspring- improvement that we seek. The book is aimed at a lay audience and covers both the technologies I just mentioned and the common sense ethical arguments for embracing them (with all due regard to issues of safety). I hope to have the book completed by spring in time for Fall publication, though my friends who are published authors inform me that this is quite an ambitious timeline. If you're seriously interested in reviewing and offering feedback on parts of the book during the writing process, let me know and I'll add you to my review loop.
So, that's a bit about me. It's a pleasure to be a member of this list. Time allowing, you may see more of my posts in the near future.
cheers,
mez
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