From: Eric Watt Forste (arkuat@pigdog.org)
Date: Mon Oct 13 1997 - 13:37:33 MDT
Julio Vaquer writes:
> We might see anti-cloning, anti-encryption, and other single-issue
> prohibitions. But an outright organized opposition to the future
> has not yet been erected. As our ideas become spread more and more
> into the mainstream, we will suddenly find people who believe
> extropian technological predictions and will organize against them.
[...snip...]
> It is my worry, unlike many of my fellow Extropians, that organized
> use of force will be used to stop or rapidly decelerated all
> applicable research and technologies related to Transhumanism.
> Many will not mind throwing us into a dark age in order to avoid
> this. I am not predicting this but I am not discounting (yet).
Although it's a good idea to remember that fretting about these
things too much can throw our nervous systems into a depressive
biochemical funk which can decrease our ability to work against
these unpleasant possibilities (remember your dynamic
optimism!), I have to agree with you that these are very real
possibilities, and that this is probably what gives my
political opinions a sense of urgency to me.
I think things will turn out okay as long as no one group or
individual succeeds in using massive organized force to try to
get other people to change their behavior in the direction
preferred by that group or individual. Unfortunately, such use
of massive organized force is the *NORM* under which we live on
this planet. That does worry me.
Essentially, who can possibly stop us from achieving the dreams
we talk about here? In the long run, the only serious threat I
can perceive comes from other Homo sapiens. Specifically, the
subset of Homo sapiens engaged in the system known as
government. Any effective opposition, I think, will end up
being channelled through there.
-- Eric Watt Forste ++ arkuat@idiom.com ++ expectation foils perception -pcd
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