I'd like to thank my friends on this list:
The ones who kept me up to date on upcoming events;
The ones who made moral accusations that I learned to counter;
The ones who suggested alterations to my personality;
The ones who forced me to speak clearly and slowly;
The ones who told me things I didn't already know;
The ones who crystallized my understanding;
And above all, first and foremost:
The ones who wrote arguments I hadn't already heard.
Special awards to:
Lee Daniel Crocker, "Most Reasonable, Coherent, and Clear";
John K. Clark, "Most Interesting Disagreements";
Anders Sandberg, "Most Saved Posts";
Eugene Leitl, "Most Educational Person";
Eric Watt Forste, "Most Unwavering Opposition";
Damien Broderick, "Best Advice";
And also:
______________, "I'm Sure I've Forgotten Someone".
______________, "And Probably Two Of Them".
And to all the others, who were not strictly *necessary*, but still
useful and fun to be with - thanks.
I've written over 100 pages - not K, pages - of explanatory posts to
this mailing list. They'll make a fine set of Web pages someday. I
want you to know that, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have anything
but nontechnical appeals to intuition when somebody asked me why the
Powers wouldn't squish us like bugs, or what good the Singularity was.
I hope that I've given more to this Extropian List than the total amount
of effort put into it divided by the number of posting listmembers, or
P. I hope that for any given individual R, I have enlightened R by an
amount greater than the amount that R has enlightened me (*). I hope
very strongly that I have repaid in equal measure any efforts directed
specifically at me.
[(*) This is not, of course, possible for every person to do, and
therefore more of an ideal than a serious (and seriously arrogant)
goal. Also, this does not mean that I have to enlighten the list as a
whole to the same extent that the list enlightened me, which would
require that I match the total creative output of everyone on the list.
Duplicate enlightenments count, so that the same enlightenment among P
listmembers is valued at E * P.]
In short, I hope I put more in than I took out, and that in retrospect,
every member of the list would have asked me to join. Extropy, and
capitalism, are supposed to work that way.
I'm the fifth person to bail out. I hope this doesn't start a
stampede. If it does start a stampede, I'm already stampeding and it
was Lyle's fault.
I intend to unsubscribe from the Extropian Mailing List completely after
a few days, not just stop posting. Messages sent here will not reach
me.
"There must be deeper rules, governing the clash of theories: deciding
which explanations hold fast, and which dissolve. We can hunt for those
rules. We can try to make sense of what went on here."
"Onward and upward? In search of higher order?"
-- "Permutation City", by Greg Egan.
"To the Singularity.
Because it is the only way out.
Because I have nowhere else to go."
-- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/singularity.html
http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/algernon.html
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.