Practical Extropianism

From: litenite@game-master.com
Date: Mon May 05 1997 - 21:16:21 MDT


I've had extropian ideas for a long time and when I found out that there was an
extropian movement, I thought "Great! There are people who think like me! Perhaps are
they going to help me grow faster."

But all I see on web pages and all I read in this mailing list's messages are theories
or general ideas. I can make theories. I can have general ideas. We all can. It's
fun to think about exploiting the moon's ressources or about changing social structures,
but it doesn't really change anything that can be immediately felt.

I think it would be good to be a bit more practical about extropianism. I'd really like
to read information on where to get drugs that can make you think faster or feel a
certain way. Such drugs are sometimes legal and available to the public, but we just
don't know about them. Putting an end to this kind of ignorance would be beneficial to
us. Understanding how the drugs work on us could further our knowledge of ourselves and
truly make us grow.

And what about existing technology? We've made wonderful things already, much more than
we usually imagine. Why dream about future technology when there's so much we already
have but don't use? Getting to know the tools we already can use would certainly help
us acheive greater technological advences faster.

What I'm saying is that it may be nice to dream about things, but it's better to do
things, to apply theories, to build upon what's already built. What I'd like to see is
an "extropian resource guide" of some sort in which one could find information that
could be immediately used to expand one's physical and intellectual capacities.

Entries in that guide could include such things as hormones presently available to
modify the body, chemicals presently available to modify the mind, technology already
available to explore the human mind (biofeedback devices, personal EEG boxes, etc.),
genetic analysis centers, "extropian food" presently available, etc...

Sure, I want to be a cyborg, but right now, precisely what can science and technology
make me?



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