-----Original Message-----
From: Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se>
To: extropians@extropy.org <extropians@extropy.org>
Date: 10 May 2001 17:23
Subject: Re: Traditional China as a counterexample to "spikism"
>torsdagen den 10 maj 2001 14:59 GBurch1@aol.com wrote:
>> You're right that the Mongol conquest was likely the catalytic event that
>> sent China into an introspective and deep conservatism. However, the
seeds
>> of Confucian orthodoxy were already there. It only took the humbling
>> experience of conquest by the western barbarians to cause the
phase-change
>> of ossification that locked China into almost a thousand years of stasis.
>>
>> Interestingly, a similar phenomenon happened with Islamic culture. The
>> conquest of the Islamic heartland by Ghengis and his progeny also caused
a
>> premature closure of the Islamic world to new ideas from outside and
>> innovation within their own cultural realm.
>
>So in the interests of continuing the ongoing western
>renaissance/enlightenment (or whatever we want to call it) we better keep
an
>eye out for anything that might cause such a closure. While Mongolian
>invaders appear unlikely, we might need to look for some culture or group
>achieving hegemony to such an extent that the dynamism of the enlightenment
>(which is still driving us, thankfully, despite postmodern confusion) is
>lost.
>
>One such possibility would be a resurgence of the romantic idea complex,
now
>empowered by connections with strong stasist groups. A green corporate
>technocracy might be very dangerous (sounds a lot like something that might
>appear in the Alpha Centauri computer game :-) if it could develop. The
core
>of such a complex would be the idea of scarcity, the world as a
zero-sum-game
>and risk aversiveness, perhaps coupled with various essentialist ideas
about
>the natural (and possibly traditional or national) as the good.
I think this is quite a possible scenario ( I agree there's not much chance
of nomad incursions these days) which is why the example of the Ming is
rather scary. They were able to eliminate several important technologies and
to restructure the economy (by reducing the role of money, going back to
peasant agriculture, discouraging or even banning long distance trade and
encouraging local self-sufficiency) in such a way as to eliminate the
dynamism of the T'ang and Sung for about 500 years. Point is we mustn't
think that technological dynamism or progress is irreversible.
>Our historical mission as extropians (sorry, I just wanted to test how it
>would feel to write that :-) is to make sure such closure scenarios doesn't
>happen. It can be done in several ways: first, we need to understand this
>kind of closure better. We might develop technologies making it harder to
>suppress dissenting or free opinions and ideas. But we should remember that
>even if you can think freely, if your entire culture (including your own
>upbringing) regards it is a worthless pursuit, then it will be hard to get
>any debate or change going. Most likely the best cultural defense is a
>cultural offense (thanks Natasha :-) both demonstrating the practical and
>moral value of change, freedom and new directions, as well as hitting the
>stasist views hard with both subversive alternatives and criticism of their
>core assumptions.
Couldn't agree more - popular culture and art are enormously important in my
view. I would add one thing: divided political power-China was a one state
civilisation with no competing sovereignties (see Joel Mokyr's thoughts on
this in The Lever of Riches).
I should introduce myself - I'm an historian in Manchester UK. I don't know
if it's unusual to find historians among extropians/transhumanists but then
I'm also a libertarian, SF fan and a congenital optimist (but then what else
can I be as a Manchester City supporter!). Steve Davies
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