The first speaker on Saturday, an extropic artist from the UK presented his
ideas clearly and refreshingly. He was followed by Dieter Kamper -- the man
responsible for introducing postmodernism to Germany, I'm told. I wish
Reilly had been there, heavily armed to save us from boredom. :-) Kamper,
as I would predict from his intellectual approach, was utterly
incomprensible. I thought it might be a poor transation, but my Germany
writer and extropian sympathizer Gundolf Freyermuth (his last book was
Cyberland) confirmed that it was the content not the language that was the
problem.
Another amusing incident: After I gave my talk on Sunday on extropian ideas
and how they were much stronger in the USA (esp. California) than in
Europe, a Brit called Paul Treanor attacked me in quite a nasty way. This
fellow thought that old technologies should be subsidized to keep their
producers in business, and that free market people are the scum of the
earth. He said that he could bear the thought of people like me existing so
long as we were all in California.
What really amused me was his own talk. In Ayn Rand's novels, the bad guys
generally match their ugly ideas with some kind of physical repulsiveness.
Perhaps it's just my childish glee, but I couldn't help finding it fitting
that Treanor's entropic ideas were presented with a really unpleasant wet
nasal sound!
I enjoyed meeting List subscriber Eugene Leitl. Since a couple of women who
live in Munich came up to say they enjoyed my talk, perhaps Eugene will
have someone he can talk to off the Net now...
Max
Max More, Ph.D.
more@extropy.org
http://www.primenet.com/~maxmore
President, Extropy Institute, Editor, Extropy
exi-info@extropy.org, http://www.extropy.org
(310) 398-0375