On 3/28/99, Scott B. wrote:
>What about following through with the earlier idea about spreading our
>memes by trying to develop courses in Transhumanism and get colleges to
>offer them. Perhaps the professors on the list could comment on how we
>might best approach this task, how courses are introduced into departments,
>which colleges/professors might be good for us to target, etc.
I will be an economics professor this fall, and to me the major limit on creating a course in ideas related to transhumanism is a lack of academic quality papers in the area. The first courses in new areas are usually based on stacks of related papers. Students can then be assigned to read them, comment on them, and attempt to produce work like them. I can't honestly say there enough such papers for me to consider trying to create a course yet.
If some of you would devote a third the time to writing coherent careful analyses as you do to posting in this mailing list, we might soon have enough papers though. If normal academic journals needlessly reject your submissions, consider submitting them to Journal of Transhumanism (where I am chief editor).
Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/ RWJF Health Policy Scholar FAX: 510-643-8614140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 510-643-1884 after 8/99: Assist. Prof. Economics, George Mason Univ.