From: Tim Bates (tbates@karri.bhs.mq.edu.au)
Date: Mon Feb 22 1999 - 00:41:26 MST
Max More said
>Tim: You raise some interesting points...
thank you kind sir.
>Many of us may well agree that affirming the principles of Open Society and
>Self-Direction means in practice something like a libertarian view.
yes. so let's see if it does so in theory as well.
tim proposed the following codicil:
>>"Transhumans do not view any larger organisation which they may join from
>>time to time as being in any way transcendent of their individual selves.
>>Their politics are constrained by this principle.
and Max said
>I don't see how this can be justified as a requirement for transhumanists
>in general, though I think it does fit the Self-Direction principle of
>Extropianism. Why can't there be collectivist transhumanists? (Call them
>The Borgists.) Or socialist transhumanists? Or technocratic socialists
>(H.G. Wells?) Or even racist transhumanists who put the transcendence of
>some group first?
Oh boy. I made big semantic mistake. There certainly can be all of these,
as you describe in your FAQ. I made the mistake of saying "transhumanist"
when i was thinking "extropian". Now that I understand that some
transhumanists believe in involuntary sterilisation and genetic
reprogramming, i will not make this mistake again.
So, wherever i have said "transhumanists" i must now say
"extropian-transhumanist"
Now, You [Max] then says something that really clarifies the whole issue
for me (but will probably upset Damien B?)
>If someone wants to be known as a transhumanist who
>rejects the idea of subordination to the collective, they can call
>themselves an Extropian transhumanist
OK. I am an extropian transhumanist. I am really happy about that but Joe
dees and Spike and maybe Natasha, as well as Damien Broderick are not
going to be.
Max also noted that
>Some [transhumanists wanting to be called extropian] may favor
>government subsidies for basic research.
>Personally, I do not, but if someone favored that because they believed in
>"market failure" for basic research, I would not see this as incompatible
>with being extropian.
Trouble is (apart from contradicting your statement cited above), that
the government is not a person. If these would-be
extropian-transhumanists favour government subsidies for university
professors like myself, they are really either:
1. Making the redundant claim that they themselves favour spending their
own money on research.
or else
2. Making the non redundant but also non-extropian claim that they favour
spending other people's money on research.
Position 2 is not compatible with self-direction.
tim
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