From: Nick Bostrom (bostrom@ndirect.co.uk)
Date: Thu Jul 01 1999 - 16:32:43 MDT
WTA Update 4
1 July 1999
Dear Member:
The second European transhumanist conference, TransVision99, took
place in Stockholm a few weeks back - a welcomed opportunity to meet
and exchange ideas with fellow transhumanists. We seem to get along
well with each other. As is often the case with conferences, much of
the action was between the presentations, or over dinner, or late in
the night outside the prison gates. (The conference was held in Kumla
Hotell, which retains many features of its former function as a
prison.) One participant's account of the event is at
http://maxm.normik.dk/tv99/html/postscript_maxm.htm.
If you're beginning to regret that you weren't there, it is still not
too late to register for EXTRO-4 in Berkeley, August 7-8! Several new
speakers have been confirmed and all indications are that it will be a
great event. More information is at
http://www.extropy.org/ex4/e4main.htm.
One of the practical issues discussed at TV99 was the need for a new
moderated discussion forum. Max M. (the Dane, not Max More) announced
a plan to create a transhumanist portal site that will support some
form of filtered news groups. Alexander Bard discussed some thoughts
he had of starting a moderated transhumanist mailinglist. The Extropy
Institute is considering to replace or complement the present
extropian list with a more ambitious implementation of their NodeNet
idea, where different topics would be discussed in separate moderated
discussion groups. After the summer we will have a clearer picture of
what will come out of these efforts.
Next year's TransVision is preliminarily scheduled to take place in
London.
The Journal of Transhumanism continues its efforts to promote
transhumanist scholarship. Although no new papers have been published
since the last update, several have been rejected and some are in the
process of being refereed. Keep the submissions coming! In addition to
the joy of contributing to human knowledge and building a reputation
for yourself, there is also a pecuniary incentive: the WTA award of
£5000, which is to be awarded for the best paper published in the JTH
before 31 December 1999, provided candidates of sufficient merit are
available.
The WTA keeps growing; we currently have about 650 members, compared
to 466 on the 20th of February. This is good news, and in order to
translate it into concrete advantages it would be good to form more
local groups. If you are interested in doing that, try to get in touch
with some other people in your area (maybe by looking at
http://www.transhumanism.com/groups.htm), start meeting up
occasionally, and take it from there.
Best wishes,
Nick Bostrom
Nick Bostrom
http://www.hedweb.com/nickb n.bostrom@lse.ac.uk
Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
London School of Economics
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