From: Douglas Houts (dhouts@sepp.org)
Date: Tue Aug 20 1996 - 12:06:32 MDT
At 02:02 AM 8/20/96 -0600, David Musick wrote:
>We're just letting you know what's coming. If or how you deal with it
>is up to you. You can keep your limitations, if you wish, but ultimately,
>they will cost you your existence.
Please don't take this personally, but I think that statements like this
(especially the last sentence, which sounds _very_ threatening) are
counterproductive; they will most likely offend, scare, and further
polarize the 'luddites and conservatives' against us. While some of these
people are probably beyond reconsidering their views, some of them might
change or moderate their views if they are tactfully interacted with.
>We don't really care whether the
>luddites and other conservatives agree with us and support our endeavors or
>not.
If (partially as a result of being antagonized or feeling threatened?) these
people go beyond not supporting our activities and actively try to prevent
transhumans from evolving, I will certainly care about it. I plan on
persuing life-extension treatments and other enhancements regardless of the
obstacles, but I would prefer things to be openly available.
I know that it takes a lot of effort to interact with people who appear to
be devoid of rational thought without getting flustered, but I think that we
should be careful to keep tactics such as ridicule and threats out of our
end of the communication process.
Douglas P Houts dhouts@sepp.org
"The moment when first the conqueror spared his victim in order permanently
to exploit him in productive work, was of incomparable historical
importance. It gave birth to both nation and state." -- Franz Oppenheimer
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