From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Thu Jun 10 1999 - 01:19:54 MDT
Max More wrote:
>
> Since Greg is more actively involved with the list than am I at this time,
> he will announce our ruling to curb this problem. I stand behind his
> statements and his judgement completely. Greg has the power to suspend from
> the list those who ignore his ruling.
Hear, hear!
I would like to urge that the reasons behind the ruling be explained in
sufficiently generic terms that the ruling can be retargeted quickly in
case this happens again. I'm not necessarily suggesting that this
particular ruling be expanded beyond guns, understand - I'd just like to
support the idea of this ruling as a precedent-setting example, a
framework, and not a temporary exigency.
With many core transhumanist concepts going at least semi-mainstream, we
have to deal with the fact that the Extropian list is known to a wider
range of posters. This is a good thing, and I'm sure the majority will
become valued transhumanists. But it's also true that a wider range of
these posters will not be familiar with the core concepts of
Extropianism. If the list is to remain interesting, there has to be a
definite (and enforced) limit on non-novel argument about the
fundamentals. I am fully in favor of explaining things to novices, but
not *arguing* the basics with them.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
Running on BeOS Typing in Dvorak Programming with Patterns
Voting for Libertarians Heading for Singularity There Is A Better Way
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